Clinical review: Ventilatory strategies for obstetric, brain-injured and obese patients.

The ventilatory management of patients with acute respiratory failure is supported by good evidence, aiming to reduce lung injury by pressure limitation and reducing the duration of ventilatory support by regular assessment for discontinuation. Certain patient groups, however, due to their altered physiology or disease-specific complications, may require some variation in usual ventilatory management. The present manuscript reviews the ventilatory management in three special populations, namely the patient with brain injury, the pregnant patient and the morbidly obese patient.

[Ventilator associated acute lung injury].

Mechanical ventilation plays a central role in the critical care setting; but its use is closely related with some life threatening complications as nosocomial pneumonia and low cardiac performance. One of the most severe complications is called ventilator-associated lung injury (VALI) and it includes: Barotrauma, volutrauma, atelectrauma, biotrauma and oxygen-mediated toxic effects and it is related with an inflammatory response secondary to the stretching and recruitment process of alveoli within mechanical ventilation. The use of some protective ventilatory strategies has lowered the mortality rate 10% approximately.

[Myocardial depression in a patient with celiac disease. A clinical case report and literature review].

We report an autoinmune myocarditis case as a complication of celiac disease in a 28 year old woman. She had a 15 month history or diarrhea. She suffered pelvic trauma due to an episode of syncope and was admitted with refractory shock to fluid repletion.

[Alveolar epithelial barrier in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)].

The clearance of alveolar fluid depends on the anatomic and physiologic integrity of alveolar epithelial barrier. The vectorial transport of sodium begins at the apical surface in the type II cell through amiloride-sensitive sodium channel. Sodium is pumping by Na, K-ATPasa from the basolateral surface of type II cell to the interstice.