Perspectives on invasive and noninvasive ventilatory support for critically ill patients are evolving, as much evidence indicates that ventilation may have positive effects on patient survival and the quality of the care provided in intensive care units in Brazil. For those reasons, the Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine (Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira - AMIB) and the Brazilian Thoracic Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Pneumologia e Tisiologia - SBPT), represented by the Mechanical Ventilation Committee and the Commission of Intensive Therapy, respectively, decided to review the literature and draft recommendations for mechanical ventilation with the goal of creating a document for bedside guidance as to the best practices on mechanical ventilation available to their members. The document was based on the available evidence regarding 29 subtopics selected as the most relevant for the subject of interest. The project was developed in several stages, during which the selected topics were distributed among experts recommended by both societies with recent publications on the subject of interest and/or significant teaching and research activity in the field of mechanical ventilation in Brazil. The experts were divided into pairs that were charged with performing a thorough review of the international literature on each topic. All the experts met at the Forum on Mechanical Ventilation, which was held at the headquarters of AMIB in São Paulo on August 3 and 4, 2013, to collaboratively draft the final text corresponding to each sub-topic, which was presented to, appraised, discussed and approved in a plenary session that included all 58 participants and aimed to create the final document.

No abstract

Perspectives on invasive and noninvasive ventilatory support for critically ill patients are evolving, as much evidence indicates that ventilation may have positive effects on patient survival and the quality of the care provided in intensive care units in Brazil. For those reasons, the Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine (Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira - AMIB) and the Brazilian Thoracic Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Pneumologia e Tisiologia - SBPT), represented by the Mechanical Ventilation Committee and the Commission of Intensive Therapy, respectively, decided to review the literature and draft recommendations for mechanical ventilation with the goal of creating a document for bedside guidance as to the best practices on mechanical ventilation available to their members. The document was based on the available evidence regarding 29 subtopics selected as the most relevant for the subject of interest. The project was developed in several stages, during which the selected topics were distributed among experts recommended by both societies with recent publications on the subject of interest and/or significant teaching and research activity in the field of mechanical ventilation in Brazil. The experts were divided into pairs that were charged with performing a thorough review of the international literature on each topic. All the experts met at the Forum on Mechanical Ventilation, which was held at the headquarters of AMIB in São Paulo on August 3 and 4, 2013, to collaboratively draft the final text corresponding to each sub-topic, which was presented to, appraised, discussed and approved in a plenary session that included all 58 participants and aimed to create the final document.

for the BaSICS investigators and the BRICNet members IMPORTANCE Slower intravenous fluid infusion rates could reduce the formation of tissue edema and organ dysfunction in critically ill patients; however, there are no data to support different infusion rates during fluid challenges for important outcomes such as mortality.OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of a slower infusion rate vs control infusion rate on 90-day survival in patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Unblinded randomized factorial clinical trial in 75 ICUs in Brazil, involving 11 052 patients requiring at least 1 fluid challenge and with 1 risk factor for worse outcomes were randomized from May 29, 2017, to March 2, 2020. Follow-up was concluded on October 29, 2020. Patients were randomized to 2 different infusion rates (reported in this article) and 2 different fluid types (balanced fluids or saline, reported separately).INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive fluid challenges at 2 different infusion rates; 5538 to the slower rate (333 mL/h) and 5514 to the control group (999 mL/h). Patients were also randomized to receive balanced solution or 0.9% saline using a factorial design. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESThe primary end point was 90-day survival.RESULTS Of all randomized patients, 10 520 (95.2%) were analyzed (mean age, 61.1 years [SD, 17.0 years]; 44.2% were women) after excluding duplicates and consent withdrawals. Patients assigned to the slower rate received a mean of 1162 mL on the first day vs 1252 mL for the control group. By day 90, 1406 of 5276 patients (26.6%) in the slower rate group had died vs 1414 of 5244 (27.0%) in the control group (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.96-1.11; P = .46). There was no significant interaction between fluid type and infusion rate (P = .98).CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Among patients in the intensive care unit requiring fluid challenges, infusing at a slower rate compared with a faster rate did not reduce 90-day mortality. These findings do not support the use of a slower infusion rate.

Patients who increase stoke volume or cardiac index more than 10 or 15% after a fluid challenge are usually considered fluid responders. Assessment of fluid responsiveness prior to volume expansion is critical to avoid fluid overload, which has been associated with poor outcomes. Maneuvers to assess fluid responsiveness are well established in mechanically ventilated patients; however, few studies evaluated maneuvers to predict fluid responsiveness in spontaneously breathing patients. Our objective was to perform a systematic review of literature addressing the available methods to assess fluid responsiveness in spontaneously breathing patients. Studies were identified through electronic literature search of PubMed from 01/08/2009 to 01/08/2016 by two independent authors. No restrictions on language were adopted. Quality of included studies was evaluated with Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. Our search strategy identified 537 studies, and 9 studies were added through manual search. Of those, 15 studies (12 intensive care unit patients; 1 emergency department patients; 1 intensive care unit and emergency department patients; 1 operating room) were included in this analysis. In total, 649 spontaneously breathing patients were assessed for fluid responsiveness. Of those, 340 (52%) were deemed fluid responsive. Pulse pressure variation during the Valsalva maneuver (∆PPV) of 52% (AUC ± SD: 0.98 ± 0.03) and passive leg raising-induced change in stroke volume (∆SV-PLR) > 13% (AUC ± SD: 0.96 ± 0.03) showed the highest accuracy to predict fluid responsiveness in spontaneously breathing patients. Our systematic review indicates that regardless of the limitations of each maneuver, fluid responsiveness can be assessed in spontaneously breathing patients. Further well-designed studies, with adequate simple size and power, are necessary to confirm the real accuracy of the different methods used to assess fluid responsiveness in this population of patients.

The feedback intervention regarding hand hygiene had no significant effect on the rate of compliance. Other measures must be used to increase and sustain the rate of hand hygiene compliance.

The early recognition and treatment of severe sepsis and septic shock is the key to a successful outcome. The longer the delay in starting treatment, the worse the prognosis due to persistent tissue hypoperfusion and consequent development and worsening of organ dysfunction. One of the main mechanisms responsible for the development of cellular dysfunction is tissue hypoxia. The adjustments necessary for adequate tissue blood flow and therefore of oxygen supply to metabolic demand according to the assessment of the cardiac index and oxygen extraction rate should be performed during resuscitation period, especially in high complexity patients. New technologies, easily handled at the bedside, and new studies that directly assess the impact of macro-hemodynamic parameter optimization on microcirculation and in the clinical outcome of septic patients, are needed.

In December 2019, a series of patients with severe pneumonia were identified in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, who progressed to severe acute respiratory syndrome and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Subsequently, COVID-19 was attributed to a new betacoronavirus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Approximately 20% of patients diagnosed as COVID-19 develop severe forms of the disease, including acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, severe acute respiratory syndrome, acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute renal failure and require intensive care. There is no randomized controlled clinical trial addressing potential therapies for patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection at the time of publishing these treatment recommendations. Therefore, these recommendations are based predominantly on the opinion of experts (level C of recommendation).