EXPRESS: Exploring Novel Non-Opioid Pathways and Therapeutics for Pain Relief.

The opioid crisis has highlighted the urgent need for alternative pain management strategies. This review explores novel non-opioid targets and pathways involved in pain modulation, highlighting advancements in understanding and therapeutic potential. Pain, a multifaceted phenomenon with nociceptive, neuropathic, and inflammatory components, involves intricate molecular signaling cascades.

Patterns of early and late ventilator-associated pneumonia due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a trauma population.

Background: Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcal aureus (CA-MRSA) infection is approaching endemic proportions nationally, and it is a potential cause for early ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in the acutely injured patient. We sought to determine the prevalence of early (≤4 days) and late (>4 days) MRSA pneumonia in ventilated multisystem trauma patients and to correlate findings with admission nasal swabs.

Methods: We performed a review of our prospective trauma and infectious disease data bases for all patients admitted to our surgical intensive care unit with early (≤4 days) and late (>4 days) VAP during a 4-year period.