Dresner

IMPORTANCE: Septic shock currently refers to a state of acute circulatory failure associated with infection. Emerging biological insights and reported variation in epidemiology challenge the validity of this definition. OBJECTIVE: To develop a new definition and clinical criteria for identifying septic shock in adults. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine convened a task force (19 participants) to revise current sepsis/septic shock definitions...

IMPORTANCE: Little empirical evidence exists on how a first (index) complication influences the risk of specific subsequent secondary complications. Understanding these risks is important to elucidate clinical pathways of failure to rescue or death after postoperative complication. OBJECTIVE: To understand patterns of secondary complications in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Matched analysis using a cohort of 890 604 patients undergoing elective inpatient surgery from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2011, identified in the NSQIP Participant Use Data File...

BACKGROUND: Early antibiotics reduce mortality in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Recent work demonstrated that women experience greater delays to antibiotic administration, but it is unknown if this relationship remains after adjusting for factors such as source of infection. OBJECTIVES: The objective was to investigate whether gender and/or source of infection are associated with delays to antibiotics in patients with severe sepsis or septic shock...

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: The role of surgically placed intra-abdominal drainages after pancreatic resections has not been clearly established. In particular, their effect on morbidity rates and the optimal timing for their removal remains controversial. METHODS: A total of 114 eligible patients who underwent standard pancreatic resections and at low risk of postoperative pancreatic fistula according to our institutional protocol (amylase value in drains < or =5000 U/L on postoperative day [POD] 1) were randomized on POD 3 to receive either early (POD 3) or standard drain removal (POD 5 or beyond)...

BACKGROUND: Controversy exists about the timing of the initiation of parenteral nutrition in critically ill adults in whom caloric targets cannot be met by enteral nutrition alone. METHODS: In this randomized, multicenter trial, we compared early initiation of parenteral nutrition (European guidelines) with late initiation (American and Canadian guidelines) in adults in the intensive care unit (ICU) to supplement insufficient enteral nutrition. In 2312 patients, parenteral nutrition was initiated within 48 hours after ICU admission (early-initiation group), whereas in 2328 patients, parenteral nutrition was not initiated before day 8 (late-initiation group)...

Much has occurred since our 2010 report in Cancers. In the past few years we published several extensive reviews of our research so a brief review is all that will be provided here. We proposed in the earlier reports that most relapses in breast cancer occur within 5 years of surgery and seem to be associated with some unspecified manner of surgery-induced metastatic initiation. These events can be identified in relapse data and are correlated with clinical data. In the last few years an unexpected mechanism has become apparent...