As medical students we were told that mechanical ventilation needs convective gas flow.
Thus, there is a sound rationale that predicting readiness of patients to be successfully liberated from mechanical ventilation needs to be based on objective weaning predictors that can be applied in clinical decision making.
When the patient is competent, we observed that patients for whom family decisions were made to withdraw life-support therapies had poorer prognosis (89.3% vs 75%, P = 0.003) and prolonged mechanical ventilation needs (84.4% vs 74.8%, P = 0.041).
In univariate analysis, ESBL acquisition was associated with male gender, SAPS II, SOFA, chronic kidney disease at admission, duration of mechanical ventilation, need for catecholamine and the ICU LOS.
These factors comprised infrastructural (hospital size, academic affiliation, leading medical discipline, implemented treatment protocols) or patient-associated (leading diagnosis, severity of illness, mechanical ventilation, need of catecholamine or vasopressor support) aspects.
Complications during the exacerbation were recorded (i.e., hemoptysis, pneumothorax, respiratory insufficiency, need for noninvasive mechanical ventilation, need for invasive mechanical ventilation, and death).
Thirty-day major cardiac events defined as death, cardiac arrest, mechanical ventilation, need for catecholamine and thrombolysis, will be evaluated as a secondary end point.
We found a certain relation between mechanical ventilation need and radiological findings, but the assumed ongoing real practice is important and the value of radiologic evaluation beyond clinical findings to predict the mechanical ventilation need is subject for further evaluation with large patient series.
The following clinical data on ICU admission were extracted from the medical records: age, gender, type of malignancy, disease extent, recent chemotherapy administration, need for mechanical ventilation, need for renal replacement, or need for vasopressor therapy.
