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.
Persistence of high levels of lactate, total amount of organic failures, shock, mechanical ventilation needs and previous renal disease were related to mortality in older people diagnosed with severe sepsis and septic shock.
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).
According to our statistical analysis, preoperative atrial fibrillation significantly increased the mortality risk (P = 0.001), the patients' mechanical ventilation needs (P = 0.022), the rate of occurrence of infectious complications (P < 0.5), the rate of occurrence of complications such as acute kidney failure (P = 0.012), and the time spent by the patients in the intensive care ward (P < 0.01).
Results: Patients who developed ICU complications (fever, sepsis, pneumonia, required mechanical ventilation, needed vasopressors or blood transfusion); showed higher ΔMPV compared to non complicated cases (Fig. 2).
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.
In only two (5%) patients were endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation needed.
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.
