Characteristics, Outcomes, and Predictability of Critically Ill Obstetric Patients: A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study.

Objective: To evaluate pregnant/postpartum patients requiring ICUs admission in Argentina, describe characteristics of mothers and outcomes for mothers/babies, evaluate risk factors for maternal-fetal-neonatal mortality; and compare outcomes between patients admitted to public and private health sectors.

Design: Multicenter, prospective, national cohort study.

Setting: Twenty ICUs in Argentina (public, 8 and private, 12).

Hypertensive disease of pregnancy in the ICU: a multicenter study.

Objective: To describe characteristics, outcomes and clinical presentations for hypertensive disease of pregnancy (HDP) in patients admitted to three ICUs in Argentina.

Methods: Case-series multicenter study.

Results: There were 184 patients with HDP.

Health insurance status and outcomes of critically ill obstetric patients: a prospective cohort study in Argentina.

Purpose: In Argentina, uninsured patients receive public health care, and the insured receive private health care. Our aim was to compare different outcomes between critically ill obstetric patients from both sectors.

Methods: This is a prospective cohort, including pregnant/postpartum patients requiring admission to 1 intensive care unit in the public sector (uninsured) and 1 in the private (insured) from January 1, 2008, to September 30, 2011.

An assessment of the Acute Kidney Injury Network creatinine-based criteria in patients submitted to mechanical ventilation.

Background And Objectives: The aim of our study was to assess the new diagnostic criteria of acute kidney injury (AKI) proposed by the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) in a large cohort of mechanically ventilated patients.

Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: This is a prospective observational cohort study enrolling 2783 adult intensive care unit patients under mechanical ventilation (MV) with data on serum creatinine concentration (SCr) in the first 48 hours. The absolute and the relative AKIN diagnostic criteria (changes in SCr ≥ 0.

Characteristics and outcomes of ventilated patients according to time to liberation from mechanical ventilation.

Rationale: A new classification of patients based on the duration of liberation of mechanical ventilation has been proposed.

Objectives: To analyze outcomes based on the new weaning classification in a cohort of mechanically ventilated patients.

Methods: Secondary analysis included 2,714 patients who were weaned and underwent scheduled extubation from a cohort of 4,968 adult patients mechanically ventilated for more than 12 hours.

Management and outcome of mechanically ventilated neurologic patients.

Objective: To describe and compare characteristics, ventilatory practices, and associated outcomes among mechanically ventilated patients with different types of brain injury and between neurologic and nonneurologic patients.

Design: Secondary analysis of a prospective, observational, and multicenter study on mechanical ventilation.

Setting: Three hundred forty-nine intensive care units from 23 countries.

Airway pressure release ventilation versus assist-control ventilation: a comparative propensity score and international cohort study.

Purpose: To compare characteristics and clinical outcomes of patients receiving airway pressure release ventilation (APRV) or biphasic positive airway pressure (BIPAP) to assist-control ventilation (A/C) as their primary mode of ventilatory support. The objective was to estimate if patients ventilated with APRV/BIPAP have a lower mortality.

Methods: Secondary analysis of an observational study in 349 intensive care units from 23 countries.

[Maternal morbidity and perinatal mortality in HELLP syndrome. Multicentric studies in intensive care units in Buenos Aires area].

We analyzed the clinical characteristics, complications, severity, and maternal and fetal survival of patients suffering from HELLP syndrome (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes level, Low Platelet count) requiring admission to the intensive care unit in four hospitals from Buenos Aires area, Argentina. Data was revised in the charts from March 1997 to March 2003 and 62 patients were included in the study. During the second half of pregnancy or immediate puerperal period, diagnostic criteria were defined on the basis of preeclampsia and the following laboratory abnormalities: platelet count nadir <150,000/mm3, serum hepatic aminotransferases >70 UI/l, and serum lactic dehydrogenase >600 UI/l, total bilirubin >1.

Resolution of ventilator-associated pneumonia: prospective evaluation of the clinical pulmonary infection score as an early clinical predictor of outcome.

Objectives: To prospectively evaluate the performance of the Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score (CPIS) and its components to identify early in the hospital course of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) which patients are responding to therapy.

Design: Prospective, multicenter, in a cohort of mechanically ventilated patients.

Setting: The intensive care unit of six hospitals located in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina.