Critical Care

The management of patients with partial thickness (second degree) burns is problematic due to the different treatments needed for varying depths of injury. A report recently published in The Lancet describes a novel treatment for deep second degree burns using a fetal skin construct (FSC). The authors included eight pediatric patients with small second degree burns. They showed that FSCs reduced the need for autografting of deep second degree burns, with little hypertrophy of new skin and no skin contraction. This technology is new and exciting, but in our opinion several issues must be addressed before FSCs can enter the clinical arena. All of the patients were included in the treatment group, and therefore no comparison with conventional skin substitutes was possible. There is no mention of the use of laser Doppler in any initial assessment of patients. The debridement carried out before application of the FSC is not elaborated upon, and the surface areas involved in the study were very small in most cases, which limits the relevance to patients with larger burns. The use of FSCs gives us an additional option in a range of possible treatments for this notoriously difficult-to-treat patient group.

Since the critical care physician will most likely be involved in a life-threatening expression of systemic mastocytosis, recognition of this disease is of utmost importance in the critical care management of these patients. Mastocytosis is a severely under-recognized disease because it typically occurs secondary to another condition and thus may occur more frequently than assumed. In this article, we will review the current knowledge on the treatment of mastocytosis crises with an emphasis on critical care management. Mastocytosis is characterized by the clonal proliferation and accumulation of mast cells in different tissues. Mast cell mediators contain a wide range of biologically active substances that may lead to itching and hives but may ultimately lead to anaphylactic shock caused by the release of histamine and other mediators from mast cells. The mainstay of therapy is the avoidance of potential triggers of mast cell degranulation and, if unsuccessful, blocking the cascade of mast cell mediators. The critical care physician should be well aware of the special precautions which should be kept in mind throughout the management of a mastocytosis crisis to avoid massive mast cell degranulation. Histamine-releasing drugs and certain physical triggers like temperature change should be avoided.

Intensive care survivors suffer chronic and potentially life-changing physical, psychosocial and cognitive sequelae, and supporting recovery is an international priority. As survivors’ transition from the intensive care unit to home, their support needs develop and change. In this scoping review, we categorised patients’ support needs using House’s Social Support Needs framework (informational, emotional, instrumental, appraisal) and mapped these against the Timing it Right framework reflecting the patient’s transition from intensive care (event/diagnosis) to ward (stabilisation/preparation) and discharge home (implementation/adaptation). We searched electronic databases from 2000 to 2017 for qualitative research studies reporting adult critical care survivors’ experiences of care. Two reviewers independently screened, extracted and coded data. Data were analysed using a thematic framework approach. From 3035 references, we included 32 studies involving 702 patients. Studies were conducted in UK and Europe (n = 17, 53%), Canada and the USA (n = 6, 19%), Australasia (n = 6, 19%), Hong Kong (n = 1, 3%), Jordan (n = 1, 3%) and multi-country (n = 1, 3%). Across the recovery trajectory, informational, emotional, instrumental, appraisal and spiritual support needs were evident, and the nature and intensity of need differed when mapped against the Timing it Right framework. Informational needs changed from needing basic facts about admission, to detail about progress and treatments and coping with long-term sequelae. The nature of emotional needs changed from needing to cope with confusion, anxiety and comfort, to a need for security and family presence, coping with flashbacks, and needing counselling and community support. Early instrumental needs ranged from managing sleep, fatigue, pain and needing nursing care and transitioned to needing physical and cognitive ability support, strength training and personal hygiene; and at home, regaining independence, strength and return to work. Appraisal needs related to obtaining feedback on progress, and after discharge, needing reassurance from others who had been through the ICU experience. This review is the first to identify the change in social support needs among intensive care survivors as they transition from intensive care to the home environment. An understanding of needs at different transition periods would help inform health service provision and support for survivors.

Mechanical ventilation of patients may be accomplished by either translaryngeal intubation or tracheostomy. Although numerous intensive care unit (ICU) studies have compared various outcomes between the two techniques, no definitive consensus indicates that tracheostomy is superior. Comparable studies have not been performed in a respiratory care center (RCC) setting. This was a retrospective observational study of 985 tracheostomy and 227 translaryngeal intubated patients who received treatment in a 24-bed RCC between November 1999 and December 2005. Treatment and mortality outcomes were compared between tracheostomized and translaryngeal intubated patients, and the factors associated with positive outcomes in all patients were determined. Duration of RCC (22 vs. 14 days) and total hospital stay (82 vs. 64 days) and total mechanical ventilation days (53 vs. 41 days) were significantly longer in tracheostomized patients (all P < 0.05). The rate of in-hospital mortality was significantly higher in the translaryngeal group (45% vs. 31%;P < 0.05). No significant differences were found in weaning success between the groups (both were >55%) or in RCC mortality. Because of significant baseline between-group heterogeneity, case-match analysis was performed. This analysis confirmed the whole cohort findings, except for the fact that a trend for in-hospital mortality was noted to be higher in the translaryngeal group (P = 0.08). Stepwise logistic regression revealed that patients with a lower median severity of disease (APACHE II score <18) who were properly nourished (albumin >2.5 g/dl) or had normal metabolism (BUN <40 mg/dl) were more likely to be successfully weaned and survive (all P < 0.05). Patients who were tracheostomized were also significantly more likely to survive (P < 0.05) These findings suggest that the type of mechanical ventilation does not appear to be an important determinant of weaning success in an RCC setting. Focused care administered by experienced providers may be more important for facilitating weaning success than the ventilation method used. However, our findings do suggest that tracheostomy may increase the likelihood of patient survival.