Latest - Critical Care

• Cardiovascular Morbidity and Mortality Post-liver Transplant This study found that liver transplant patients are at high risk of developing cardiovascular events post transplantation, even with no pre-existing risk factors. Can predictors be determined?
  Liver International, August 2019
• Guideline Helps Spot Pulmonary Embolism in Cancer Patients Using the American College of Physicians (ACP) guideline to evaluate cancer patients presenting to the emergency department who may have pulmonary embolism (PE) can help curtail the need for procedures such as CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA), a retrospective study suggests.
  Reuters Health Information, August 2019
• Alert FDA OKs First-in-Class Antibiotic Lefamulin (Xenleta) for CABP The new semisynthetic pleuromutilin antibiotic will be available for oral and IV administration with a short 5- to 7-day course of therapy for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP).
  FDA Approvals, August 2019
• Crisis for Severe Malaria Treatment in United States The last stocks of the only FDA-approved injectable drug for severe malaria expired in April, compassionate access to the only alternative is at least 8 hours away, and hospitals need emergency plans.
  Medscape Medical News, August 2019
• Mother's Voice May Shield Sleeping Newborn From NICU Noise Babies in the neonatal ICU who are exposed to their mothers' voice during sleep are less likely to awaken after loud bursts of ambient noise, especially if they were born at or after 35 weeks' gestation, researchers say.
  Reuters Health Information, August 2019
• Alert FDA Expands Approval for TAVR Valves to Low-risk Patients The Sapien 3 and Sapien 3 Ultra and the CoreValve Evolut R and CoreValve Evolut PRO were previously indicated only in patients at intermediate or higher surgical risk.
  FDA Approvals, August 2019
• The Role of Interferon Response in Containing Bourbon Virus A better understanding of the role of interferon in the suppression of Bourbon virus could have important implications for treatment.
  Emerging Infectious Diseases, August 2019
• Medicare Wastes Billions on Newer Drugs Medicare could have saved close to $17 billion from 2011-2017 by substituting 12 older drugs (racemic precursors) for newer single-enantiomer drugs, and beneficiaries could have saved more than $1 billion in out-of-pocket costs, researchers say.
  Reuters Health Information, August 2019
• New Storage Systems Could Expand Donor-Organ Availability Two new organ preservation systems could improve the availability of donor hearts and lungs, researchers report.
  Reuters Health Information, August 2019
• Making a 'Working Diagnosis' of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis With expensive but effective therapies now available to treat IPF, making an accurate diagnosis is more important than ever.
  Medscape Critical Care, August 2019
• Global Measles Cases Nearly Tripled Since Last Year, WHO Says So far this year, the number of global measles cases is surging, reaching numbers that haven't been this high since 2006, according to WHO; measles vaccine uptake is also suboptimal.
  Medscape Medical News, August 2019
• Trump Administration Hits Brakes on Law to Curb Unneeded Medicare CT Scans, MRIs Critics worry the delays come at a steep cost: Medicare paying for millions of unnecessary exams and patients subject to radiation for no medical benefit.
  Kaiser Health News, August 2019
• HsTroponin in ED Predicts Short-term CV Events Use of the ESC 0/1-hour cardiac troponin algorithm predicts 30-day MACE with high safety and efficacy, but an extended algorithm that includes clinical judgment may better identify unstable angina.
  Medscape Medical News, August 2019
• Alert FDA OKs 'Game Changer' Pretomanid for Highly Resistant TB Pretomanid is only the third approved TB drug in 40 years. A pivotal study shows the oral drug regimen has a success rate of 89% and treatment takes 6 months instead of the current 2 years.
  FDA Approvals, August 2019
• Is It Ethical to Use Medical Data Derived From Evil Sources? Some immoral experiments have produced valuable information.
  Medscape Reader Polls, August 2019
• Steady Beeping of Trivial Alarms Desensitizes ED Staff Walk into any emergency room in the U.S. and you'll hear a regular din of beeping alarms going off from machines connected to patients. But a new study found only a tiny fraction of the alarms signals a condition important enough to require a change in the patient's care.
  Reuters Health Information, August 2019
• Med Student Recalls Being Kidnapped and Thrown Into a Trunk A former undercover police detective tells how his harrowing exploits as a cop now help him in medical school.
  Medscape Business of Medicine, August 2019
• Facing Death, a Physician Has a Change of Heart   Dr Alin Gragossian describes her own heart transplant experience with Dr Robert Glatter and provides advice for healthcare workers.
  Medscape Emergency Medicine, August 2019
• Experimental Ebola Drugs Reduce Mortality in Early Results Regeneron EB-3 and monoclonal antibody 114 will be made available to all patients with Ebola virus disease in the region, regardless of whether they were enrolled in the trial.
  Medscape Medical News, August 2019
• Views of Organ Recovery Before Circulatory Death Organ recovery from an imminently dying patient could help address the transplant organ shortage, but how do families and clinicians feel about the practice?
  American Journal of Transplantation, August 2019