For how we live.
When helicopter teams could start ECMO at the scene of a refractory cardiac arrest in people aged 50 or under, 40% survived to discharge versus 20% without it. The study was not randomised.
In DAPT-SHOCK-AMI, patients with a heart attack complicated by cardiogenic shock got intravenous cangrelor or crushed ticagrelor. Cangrelor blocked platelets more reliably but did not prove non-inferior at 30 days.
The FDA logged a Class I recall of Ventec's VOCSN, V+Pro, VC and V*Home ventilators on 28 October, citing an internal cable connector that can detach, rebooting the device and interrupting breathing support.
In 1,095 high-risk abdominal-surgery patients, targeting each person's own cardiac index during the operation left the rate of major complications essentially unchanged — 44.3% versus 46.9%.
SLOWH, a 102-patient randomised trial, compared cutting flow first, oxygen first, or both at once when weaning critically ill adults off high-flow nasal cannula. Success rates of 94%, 81% and 77% did not differ.
A 37-hospital registry tracked 17,602 adults whose hearts stopped while admitted. CPR usually started within a minute, yet only 9.1% survived to discharge — and after-care lagged far behind the initial response.
A randomised trial at eight South Korean hospitals found pulse methylprednisolone no better than a non-pulse regimen for surviving an acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The FDA logged the recall of 5,232 Automated Impella Controllers on 23 September, citing a possible purge-pressure sensor failure that can leave the console unable to recognise the pump's purge cassette.
LOGICAL randomised 1,840 unresponsive adults in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland to conservative or liberal oxygen in intensive care. Favourable outcome at 180 days was 38.2% against 39.7%.
A double-blind Danish trial gave the drug or placebo during resuscitation at 21 hospitals. Restored circulation occurred in 39% versus 37% — no meaningful difference — and bicarbonate raised blood alkalosis and sodium.
The PROPOSITIS trial put babies on high-flow oxygen face-down or on their backs. Escalation of care was 15% versus 21% — a difference that did not reach significance, and the authors call the study inconclusive.
In GASTRIC-PICU, 4,700 ventilated children were randomised to routine gastric residual checks or none. Dropping the checks was non-inferior for survival and ventilator-free days, and improved nutrition.
VICTORY randomised 238 adults with severe burns to intravenous vitamin C or placebo. It was stopped early: 28-day mortality was 15.0% versus 7.6%, and the trial crossed a prespecified harm threshold.
Across 41 hospitals in 19 Asian countries, ACORN-HAI found 73.7% of severe bloodstream and ventilator infections were drug-resistant, and 37.7% of those patients died within 28 days.
Sepsis is the body's own response to an infection turning against its organs. It kills an estimated 11 million people a year, and the evidence keeps pointing to how fast it is caught and treated.
In DigiSep, adding metagenomic sequencing to standard cultures did not improve the main 28-day outcome, though ventilation time and shock resolution were shorter in exploratory analyses.
In a 500-patient ICU trial across seven countries, bicarbonate infusions for metabolic acidosis in patients on vasopressors did not lower major kidney events or death at 30 days.
In a UK trial of 1,956 critically ill adults, neither carbocisteine nor nebulised hypertonic saline shortened time on a ventilator, and each was tied to a specific harm.
PRoMPT BOLUS, a 9041-child trial across 47 emergency departments, found kidney-injury events at 30 days in 3.4% on balanced fluid and 3.0% on saline (P=0.85) — no meaningful difference.
A new GBD analysis puts sepsis-related deaths at 21.4 million, roughly double the 11.0 million estimated for 2017 — a change driven partly by COVID-19 and partly by a different method.