Reducing Unnecessary Laboratory Utilization in the Medical ICU: A Fellow-Driven Quality Improvement Initiative.

Objectives: Overutilization of laboratory services is now recognized as harmful to patients and wasteful. In fact, the American Board of Internal Medicine's Choosing Wisely campaign recommends against ordering routine testing that does not answer a clinical question. Per peer benchmarking, our institution as a whole occupied an extreme outlier position at the 100th percentile for laboratory utilization.

A 26-Year-Old Woman With Dyspnea on Exertion.

A 26-year-old woman with no significant medical history was referred for 5 months of dry cough, dyspnea, presyncope and chest pressure, and nausea with exertion. The family history was notable for thromboembolic disease in the setting of malignancy and autoimmune disease. She was not on any medications.

Circulating Gasdermin-D in Critically Ill Patients.

Unlabelled: The key to further improving outcomes in sepsis lies in understanding and abrogating the dysfunctional immune response that leads to organ failure. Activation of gasdermin-D, a pore-forming protein within the inflammasome cascade, has recently been recognized as the critical step in pyroptosis and organ dysfunction. In this study, we sought to investigate the presence of gasdermin-D in critically ill subjects.