Critical Care Reviews Newsletter

Welcome to the 526th Critical Care Reviews Newsletter, bringing you the best critical care research and open access articles from across the medical literature over the past seven days. The highlights of this week's edition are randomised controlled trials investigating atorvastatin in critically ill patients with COVID-19 & the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia by noble metal coating of endotracheal tubes; systematic reviews and meta analyses on balanced versus unbalanced fluids in critically ill children & prone positioning during venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for acute respiratory distress syndrome; and observational studies on monitoring spinal cord tissue oxygen in patients with acute, severe traumatic spinal cord injuries & brain biopsy for neurological diseases of unknown etiology in critically ill patients.

There are also guidelines on plasma and platelet transfusion practice in critically ill children & multisystem inflammatory syndrome related to COVID-19; narrative reviews on biomarkers for sepsis & when to change treatment of acute invasive aspergillosis; commentaries on  the rational diagnostician and achieving diagnostic excellence & routine use of point-of-care lung ultrasound during the COVID-19 pandemic; an editorial on coming to terms with a new normal: recovery, resilience, and opportunities in a Post-Covid World; as well as correspondence on awake prone positioning on diaphragmatic function.

If you only have time to read one review article this week, try this one on resuscitation fluids as drugs: targeting the endothelial glycocalyx.

Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2022

Registration has opened for CCR22, featuring major trial result presentations, reviews of the best trials of the previous year and discussions on trial methodology, interpretation and publishing. It's on June 15th to 17th, in Titanic Belfast. As an opener, we have the results presentations of the CLASSIC trial, comparing conservative with liberal fluid therapy in septic shock; LOVIT, investigating vitamin C in sepsis; and the long term outcomes of HOT-ICU, examining liberal and conservative oxygenation targets in patients with hypoxaemic respiratory failure. We also will have the chief investigators present each of TTM2 (targeted temperature management after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest), PLUS (0.9% saline vs plama-lyte 148 for fluid resuscitation), COAST (oxygenation strategies in African children with pneumonia), VAM-IHCA (vasopressin, methylprednisolone and adrenaline for in-hospital cardiac arrest) and SUDDICU (selective decontamination of the digestive tract). The programme will continue to grow as more trials are added. As usual, we have a superb social programme to  match our scientific programme, and offer our standard free on-site childcare and reduced maternity and paternity registration rates.

PLUS Trial Result Livestream

Join us next week, on Tuesday 18th 20:00 (UTC +0), for the livestream of the PLUS trial results presentation. PLUS is a large multi-centre randomised controlled trial comparing 0.9% saline with plasmalyte-148 in 5000 critically ill patients. It follows on from the BASICS trial result we had in August and further adds to the growing evidence base in the field. After Simon Finfer presents the results of the PLUS trial, Naomi Hammond will present an up-to-date systematic review and meta analysis comparing balanced fluids with 0.9% saline. We have a superb faculty organised, with Deborah Cook giving the editorial, and a panel discussion including John Kellum, Gordon Guyatt, Tomoko Fujii and Jeff Drazen. The livestream will be freely available on the Critical Care Reviews website.