Temperature management in acute brain injury: A narrative review.

Temperature management has been used in patients with acute brain injury resulting from different conditions, such as post-cardiac arrest hypoxic-ischaemic insult, acute ischaemic stroke, and severe traumatic brain injury. However, current evidence offers inconsistent and often contradictory results regarding the clinical benefit of this therapeutic strategy on mortality and functional outcomes. Current guidelines have focused mainly on active prevention and treatment of fever, while therapeutic hypothermia (TH) has fallen into disuse, although doubts persist as to its effectiveness according to the method of application and appropriate patient selection.

Selective decontamination of the digestive tract: concept and application.

Selective digestive decontamination (SDD) is a prophylactic strategy aimed at preventing or eradicating bacterial overgrowth in the intestinal flora that precedes the development of most infections in the Intensive Care Unit. SDD prevents serious infections, reduces mortality, is cost-effective, has no adverse effects, and its short- or long-term use is not associated with any significant increase in antimicrobial resistance. SDD is one of the most widely evaluated interventions in critically ill patients, yet its use is not widespread.

Risk factors for readmission to ICU and analysis of intra-hospital mortality.

Introduction: Critical patients, despite initial recovery in the intensive care unit (ICU), may require readmission to the ICU or even die in the same hospital episode. The objectives are to determine the incidence and to identify risk factors for ICU readmission, and to determine hospital mortality.

Methods: Observational cohort study of all patients admitted consecutively for more than 24hours to the ICU of the University Hospital of Getafe between April 1, 2018 and September 30, 2018 and discharged alive from their first ICU admission.

Gastric rupture from blunt abdominal trauma.

Gastric rupture following blunt abdominal trauma is rare, with a reported incidence of 0.02-1.7%.