Introduction: The use of volatile anaesthetic agents for the sedation of patients requiring critical care treatment offers several theoretical advantages over intravenous sedation, which may be of benefit in neurocritical care. However, there are concerns that they may increase intracranial pressure. The objective of this systematic review is to assess whether, and if so, to what extent volatile anaesthetic agents affect intracranial pressure, cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral oximetry and cerebrovascular autoregulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To clarify the mechanistic basis for the success or failure of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF).
Design: We created digital twins based on mechanistic computational models of individual patients with AHRF.
Setting: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Systems Medicine Research Network.
Volatile anesthetic agents are increasingly widely used for critical care sedation. There are concerns that sevoflurane presents a risk of renal injury when used in this role. RCTs comparing the use of critical care sevoflurane sedation with any control in humans were systematically identified using MEDLINE, Cochrane CENTRAL, web of Science, and CINAHL (until May 2022), if they presented comparative data on renal function or serum inorganic fluoride levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We aimed to use a high-fidelity computational model that captures key interactions between the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems to investigate whether current CPR protocols could potentially be improved.
Methods: We developed and validated the computational model against available human data. We used a global optimisation algorithm to find CPR protocol parameters that optimise the outputs associated with return of spontaneous circulation in a cohort of 10 virtual subjects.
Background: Optimal respiratory support in early COVID-19 pneumonia is controversial and remains unclear. Using computational modelling, we examined whether lung injury might be exacerbated in early COVID-19 by assessing the impact of conventional oxygen therapy (COT), high-flow nasal oxygen therapy (HFNOT), continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), and noninvasive ventilation (NIV).
Methods: Using an established multi-compartmental cardiopulmonary simulator, we first modelled COT at a fixed FiO (0.
Background: In non-traumatic respiratory failure, pre-hospital application of CPAP reduces the need for intubation. Primary blast lung injury (PBLI) accompanied by haemorrhagic shock is common after mass casualty incidents. We hypothesised that pre-hospital CPAP is also beneficial after PBLI accompanied by haemorrhagic shock.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFModern ventilators are increasingly compact and able to deliver a wide range of ventilator modes and sophisticated monitoring capabilities. However, the global availability of ventilators is woefully short of demand. Data on intensive care units (ICUs), a proxy measure for hospital ventilator capacity in low and middle-income countries (LMIC's), suggest that capacity is extremely limited where it exists at all.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is on-going controversy regarding the potential for increased respiratory effort to generate patient self-inflicted lung injury (P-SILI) in spontaneously breathing patients with COVID-19 acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure. However, direct clinical evidence linking increased inspiratory effort to lung injury is scarce. We adapted a computational simulator of cardiopulmonary pathophysiology to quantify the mechanical forces that could lead to P-SILI at different levels of respiratory effort.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 acute respiratory distress syndrome appear to present with at least two distinct phenotypes: severe hypoxemia with relatively well-preserved lung compliance and lung gas volumes (type 1) and a more conventional acute respiratory distress syndrome phenotype, displaying the typical characteristics of the "baby lung" (type 2). We aimed to test plausible hypotheses regarding the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying coronavirus disease 2019 acute respiratory distress syndrome and to evaluate the resulting implications for ventilatory management.
Design: We adapted a high-fidelity computational simulator, previously validated in several studies of acute respiratory distress syndrome, to: 1) develop quantitative insights into the key pathophysiologic differences between the coronavirus disease 2019 acute respiratory distress syndrome and the conventional acute respiratory distress syndrome and 2) assess the impact of different positive end-expiratory pressure, Fio and tidal volume settings.
Background: Primary blast lung injury (PBLI) presents as a syndrome of respiratory distress and haemoptysis resulting from explosive shock wave exposure and is a frequent cause of mortality and morbidity in both military conflicts and terrorist attacks. The optimal mode of mechanical ventilation for managing PBLI is not currently known, and clinical trials in humans are impossible due to the sporadic and violent nature of the disease.
Methods: A high-fidelity multi-organ computational simulator of PBLI pathophysiology was configured to replicate data from 14 PBLI casualties from the conflict in Afghanistan.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
July 2019
Primary blast lung injury is the most important component of a multisystem syndrome of injury that results from exposure to an explosive shockwave. The majority of such casualties require ventilation in an intensive care unit. We describe the use of a novel primary blast lung injury simulator to evaluate the potential efficacy of continuous positive airway pressure in 6 in silico casualties over 24 hours after injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Primary blast lung injury occurs when an explosive shock wave passes through the thorax and transits through tissues of varying densities. It requires close proximity to an explosion and presents quick with respiratory distress in survivors.
Materials And Methods: The Joint Theatre Trauma Registry and the Defence Statistics (Health) Database were interrogated for casualties injured as a result of an explosion during the conflict in Afghanistan.