Tag Archives: Critical Care

Critical Care

26. A Case of AMS, Renal Failure, and Hemolysis

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This week on Pulm PEEPs, we have another great case episode. We’re switching up the format a bit, and instead of introducing our guests in the beginning, we’ll bring them in consultants as we need to. Luckily, we’re joined by Pulm PEEPs Associated Editor Luke Hedrick to walk us through the case. Let us know your thoughts and if you have any other pearls to add!

Meet Our Guests

Rakhi Naik an Associate Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Associate Director for the Hematology / Oncology Fellowship program. She also has a Masters in Health Sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has expertise in an array of non-malignant hematology disorders and focuses specifically on sickle cell in her research. She is also an outstanding and dedicated educator and serves as the Chair of the American Society of Hematology Hematology-Focused Training Program Consortium to develop innovative training pathways for non-malignant heme.

Patient Presentation

A 60-year-old woman with a past medical history of hypertension, diabetes, stage 4 chronic kidney disease, COPD, HFpEF, chronic pain on methadone, hyperparathyroidism s/p parathyroidectomy that was c/b hypothyroidism now on thyroid hormone replacement, and a recent admission for nonconvulsive status epilepticus is brought to an outside hospital by EMS with encephalopathy and shaking. 

When EMS gets her to the other hospital her GCS was 5, so she was intubated for airway protection and started on fentanyl and midazolam drips. Details of labs and imaging are scarce, but we know that she had a CT head that was normal, a CXR with a report of pulmonary edema, and labs with a Cr of 2.4, serum bicarbonate of 14, and a pH from a VBG of 7.1 with pCO2 of 38.

Key Learning Points

*Spoilers ahead* The infographic below highlighting key points gives away the diagnosis in this case so if you want to work through the case on your own, we recommend listening to the episode first.

References and further reading

  1. George JN. Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura. New England Journal of Medicine. 2006;354(18):1927-1935. doi:10.1056/NEJMcp053024
  2. Joly BS, Coppo P, Veyradier A. Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Blood. 2017;129(21):2836-2846. doi:10.1182/blood-2016-10-709857
  3. Kremer Hovinga JA, Coppo P, Lämmle B, Moake JL, Miyata T, Vanhoorelbeke K. Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2017;3(1):1-17. doi:10.1038/nrdp.2017.20
  4. Scully M, Cataland SR, Peyvandi F, et al. Caplacizumab Treatment for Acquired Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura. New England Journal of Medicine. 2019;380(4):335-346. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1806311
  5. Sukumar S, Lämmle B, Cataland SR. Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management. J Clin Med. 2021;10(3):536. doi:10.3390/jcm10030536

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25. ARDS Precision Medicine & Phenotypes Roundtable

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We’re very excited this week on Pulm PEEPs to be resuming our Roundtable series. We are joined by two outstanding critical care doctors to discuss precision medicine in the ICU, specifically ARDS phenotypes. This is a topic of increasing clinical and research interest, and personalized medicine in the ICU will certainly change the landscape of how care is delivered in the coming years and decades. We are honing in on ARDS today and how phenotyping can influence future research and clinical care.

Meet Our Guests

Carolyn Calfee is a Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a leader in the field of ARDS research and a pioneer in the field of ARDS phenotyping research. She has received numerous NIH grants and has literally 100s of publications on ARDS and other topics. She is also a previous ATS CC Assembly chair, and in 2022 received the ATS Recognition Award for Scientific Accomplishments.

Annette Esper is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. She works clinically in critical care and is the Medical Director of the stepdown Intensive Care Unit at Grady Memorial Hospital. In addition to her clinical activities, Annette does both clinical and translational research in ARDS, and was the Assembly Chair for the ATS Critical Care Assembly from 2021 – 2022.

Key Learning Points

Berlin Criteria of ARDS:

— Acute symptoms developing within 7 days of a known insult

— Bilateral airspace opacites on chest imaging

— Hypoxemia not fully explained by cardiogenic pulmonary edema

— P:F ratio < 300 on a PEEP of 5

Heterogeneity in ARDS

— ARDS has a broad definition so it is comprised of people with a wide range of disease characteristics and severity

— There is heterogeneity in clinical characteristics, but also underlying biological drivers of disease

— Heterogeneity stymies research efforts to identify effective therapies in ARDS

Phenotyping in ARDS

— There are many ways of phenotyping for critical illness and ARDS

1. Etiology. Examples: COVID vs non-COVID, pulmonary vs non-pulmonary, bacterial vs viral

2. Physiologic phenotypes: Severity (Berlin criteria P:F ratio); Compliance, Ventilatory ratio

3. Biological phenotypes: Different underlying drivers of disease

— The motivation for phenotyping is to find treatment-responsive subgroups within the broader heterogeneous subgroups

— Phenotyping embodies more than risk factors, because it includes information about the host response, not just predictors of outcome

Biomarkers in ARDS

— There is probably a role for biomarkers in ARDS clinically and in research

> Prognostication

> Identify who will be responsive to specific therapies

> May not be one biomarker, will likely be a panel

— What is the perfect ARDS biomarker?

> Specific: identify a group of patients that are at risk, or respond to therapies differently

> Easily measurable at the bedside

> Reliable

> Reproducible

— Challengers in identifying useful biomarkers

> Heterogeneity of disease

> Real world applicability. For example, can you get IL-6 back in real-time? Can you apply it consistently when labs have different testing techniques and scales?

> Temporal stability – how do biomarkers change over the time course of ARDS?

— Biomarkers of interest

> Inflammatory markers (IL-6, IL-8, TNF)

> sRAGE – Soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products

> Highest levels on type 1 alveolar epithelial cells

> Seems to be a marker of alveolar epithelial injuries

> Meta-genomic sequencing of patients in a real-time environment

Latent class analysis

— Clustering technique that, agnostic to outcomes, looks for existing groups within the data

— Ideally, identifies biologically distinct phenotypes that may have different prognoses or response to therapy

Omics in ARDS

— Existing risk scores are quite limited, so using biological data to distinguish patients seems promising.

— Unbiased approach to identifying subgroups to identify patients that behave similarly biologically

— Omics is really thinking about endotyping patients and identifying the biological processes that are driving phenotypes

Hypo and hyperinflammatory phenotypes in ARDS

— Described by LCA incorporating demographics, clinical data, labs, vital signs, 6-8 plasma protein biomarkers

— Importantly, the groups were identified agnostically to outcomes.

— Distinguished by:

> Inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6, IL-8, TNF 1)

> Acidosis

> Shock, vasopressor requirement, and multi-system organ failure

— Consistently across 8 different data sets

— Both RCTs and observational cohorts

— Hyperinflammatory phenotype has dramatically worse clinically outcomes (higher mortality, fewer VFD)

— The different phenotypes respond differently to therapies retrospectively in RCTs

— The phenotypes did respond differently to PEEP, fluids conservative therapy, and simvastatin.

— This was not seen universally (rosuvastatin did not have differential treatment response)

— Note: We don’t really know that inflammation is at the heart of the pathogenesis of what distinguishes these two groups. The “hypoinflammatory” phenotype still has elevated levels of inflammatory biomarkers compared to controls.

What is next?

— This is all just subgroup analysis.

— These hypotheses still need to be tested prospectively

— Need to be able to easily identify the phenotypes quickly and easily

— Working on biomarker-based and non-biomarker-based clinical classifications

Key Quote:

Dr. Calfee “My takeaway point would be, there is no one best or one right way to phenotype these patients. I think there are numerous different approaches that we’re probably going to be using over the years. But I would say that what we want to focus on is what has the potential to change outcomes for our patients and to really identify individual patients or groups of patients that respond differently to therapies. And I think if we can keep that goal in mind and start testing some of these hypotheses prospectively we’re going to make progress.”

References and links for further reading

  1. Sinha P, Calfee CS. Phenotypes in ARDS: Moving Towards Precision Medicine. Curr Opin Crit Care. 2019;25(1):12-20. doi:10.1097/MCC.0000000000000571
  2. Calfee CS, Delucchi KL, Sinha P, et al. Acute respiratory distress syndrome subphenotypes and differential response to simvastatin: secondary analysis of a randomised controlled trial. Lancet Respir Med. 2018;6(9):691-698. doi:10.1016/S2213-2600(18)30177-2
  3. Matthay MA, Arabi YM, Siegel ER, et al. Phenotypes and personalized medicine in the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Intensive Care Med. 2020;46(12):2136-2152. doi:10.1007/s00134-020-06296-9
  4. Wilson JG, Calfee CS. ARDS Subphenotypes: Understanding a Heterogeneous Syndrome. Crit Care. 2020;24(1):102. doi:10.1186/s13054-020-2778-x
  5. Yang P, Esper AM, Martin GS. The Future of ARDS Biomarkers: Where Are the Gaps in Implementation of Precision Medicine? In: Vincent JL, ed. Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2020. Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. Springer International Publishing; 2020:91-100. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-37323-8_7

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23. Fellows’ Case Files: University of Washington

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We’re very excited for the second episode in our Pulm PEEPs Fellows’ Case Files series! For a reminder, the purpose of this series is to highlight and amplify the incredible clinical work that is done by pulmonary and critical care fellows, share fascinating cases, and assemble a diverse network of pulmonary and critical care educators. This week, we’re visiting the Pacific Northwest and headed to the University of Washington to meet two passionate educators, and hear about an incredible teaching case.

Meet Our Guests

Robin Stiller is a third-year pulmonary and critical care fellow at the University of Washington. Robin completed internal medicine residency training at the University of Washington and her clinical and research interests include procedural education and curriculum development.

Başak Çoruh Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and is the Program Director for the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship. She completed her fellowship and the Teaching Scholars Program at UW. Başak has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards throughout her career and has leadership roles with ATS, CHEST as well as the APCCMPD.

Patient Presentation

A 56-year-old woman with a history of alcohol use and depression presents after being found down at home by her boyfriend with an unknown downtime. She was found to be unresponsive and in the supine position. Her physical exam did not show any obvious trauma but the paramedics did note vomitus on her face. She received 1 L of crystalloids in the field and was intubated and brought to the ED for further management. A  bag of pill bottles was found and brought with her. Her home medications include amlodipine, baclofen, buspirone, and hydroxyzine.

Key Learning Points

**Spoilers Ahead** If you want to think through the case on your own we advise listening to the episode first before looking at the infographic below

References and Further Reading

  1. Boyer EW, Shannon M. Treatment of calcium-channel-blocker intoxication with insulin infusion. N Engl J Med. 2001;344(22):1721-1722. doi:10.1056/NEJM200105313442215
  2. Cole JB, Arens AM, Laes JR, Klein LR, Bangh SA, Olives TD. High dose insulin for beta-blocker and calcium channel-blocker poisoning. Am J Emerg Med. 2018;36(10):1817-1824. doi:10.1016/j.ajem.2018.02.004
  3. Proano L, Chiang WK, Wang RY. Calcium channel blocker overdose. Am J Emerg Med. 1995;13(4):444-450. doi:10.1016/0735-6757(95)90137-X
  4. St-Onge M, Dubé PA, Gosselin S, et al. Treatment for calcium channel blocker poisoning: a systematic review. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2014;52(9):926-944. doi:10.3109/15563650.2014.965827

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22. Fellows’ Case Files: University of Maryland

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This week we are absolutely thrilled to be launching a new series here at Pulm PEEPs. This is the first episode in our new Fellows’ Case Files series. The purpose of this series is to highlight the incredible clinical work that is done by pulmonary and critical care fellows everywhere, share fascinating cases from across the world, and assemble a diverse network of pulmonary and critical care educators. For each episode, we will visit a different institution, and be joined by a current fellow and the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Program Director. Our aim is to learn from them, amplify some incredible teaching points, and hear about their program. We hope you enjoy it, and if you have a case you want to bring on the series reach out to us on Twitter or at our email pulmpeeps@gmail.com.

Meet Our Guests

Fahid Alghanim is a senior pulmonary and critical care fellow at the University of Maryland. He attended medical school at the Lebanese American University Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview. He has published on topics ranging from lung transplants to patient navigators in the ICU.

Dr. Van Holden is an Associate Professor of  Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Program director. Clinically, she specializes in interventional pulmonology. She is also an accomplished educator and is very active with the American Thoracic Society. She helped write the 2021 Critical Care Core Curriculum and helped coordinate the 2022 Resident Boot Camp.

Patient Presentation

A 26-year-old man presents to his primary care doctor with 1.5 months of intermittent dyspnea, cough, chest tightness, and fatigue. His dyspnea was initially exertional, and he noticed he could do less at the gym. However, in the past 3-4 weeks it has progressed to being even with mild movement. His brother was recently diagnosed and treated for acute bronchitis so he thought this could be similar. In the office, he is noted to be tachypneic with an oxygen saturation of 83% breathing ambient air. A chest X-ray is obtained and he is sent urgently to the emergency department.

Key Learning Points

**Spoilers Ahead** If you want to think through the case on your own we advise listening to the episode first before looking at the infographics below

  1. Crazy Paving is a radiological term describing ground glass opacities with superimposed interlobular septal thickening. The differential diagnosis is broad and includes infectious, neoplastic, and autoimmune processes. It is not limited to just Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) but is suggestive in an appropriate clinical setting.
  2. PAP is a disorder of surfactant production or clearance and its etiology is divided into three major subgroups. Primary or autoimmune; Secondary such as from toxic inhalations, hematological disorders, or medications; and Congenital
  3. PAP is diagnosed by positive Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining of lipo-proteinaceous material in the distal bronchioles and alveoli on lung biopsy. The diagnosis can be made with PAS-positive BAL staining, but this has limited sensitivity and lung biopsy is necessary for the diagnosis in up to 30 – 35% of cases.
  4. It is important not to anchor on a diagnosis when a patient presents to you for re-evaluation even if seen by a prior expert. This was pivotal in this case!
  5. Please don’t put anything in your lung. Any toxic inhalation exposure could result in significant damage to lung parenchyma and morbidity as a result.

References and Further Reading

  1. Borie R, Danel C, Debray MP, et al. Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Eur Respir Rev. 2011;20(120):98-107. doi:10.1183/09059180.00001311
  2. Carey B, Trapnell BC. The molecular basis of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Clin Immunol. 2010;135(2):223-235. doi:10.1016/j.clim.2010.02.017
  3. Inoue Y, Trapnell BC, Tazawa R, et al. Characteristics of a large cohort of patients with autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis in Japan. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2008;177(7):752-762. doi:10.1164/rccm.200708-1271OC
  4. Kavuru MS, Malur A, Marshall I, et al. An open-label trial of rituximab therapy in pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Eur Respir J. 2011;38(6):1361-1367. doi:10.1183/09031936.00197710
  5. Michaud G, Reddy C, Ernst A. Whole-lung lavage for pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Chest. 2009;136(6):1678-1681. doi:10.1378/chest.09-2295
  6. Smith BB, Torres NE, Hyder JA, et al. Whole-lung Lavage and Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis: Review of Clinical and Patient-centered Outcomes. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2019;33(9):2453-2461. doi:10.1053/j.jvca.2019.03.047
  7. Tazawa R, Ueda T, Abe M, et al. Inhaled GM-CSF for Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis. New England Journal of Medicine. 2019;381(10):923-932. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1816216
  8. Tung AH, Grace J, O’Kane GM, Kumar K. Transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) in diagnosing pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP): forgotten role in Australia? Respirology Case Reports. 2015;3(4):145-147. doi:10.1002/rcr2.129
  9. Werner AK, Koumans EH, Chatham-Stephens K, et al. Hospitalizations and Deaths Associated with EVALI. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020;382(17):1589-1598. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1915314

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21. Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS)

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Today on Pulm PEEPs, we are joined by two pioneers in the field of post-intensive care outcomes and delirium research. Drs. Dale Needham and Wes Ely talk to us all about the Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) and cover everything from how it was first recognized, to the impact it has, and, most importantly, what we can do to prevent it. This is a huge topic in the field of critical care and we’re thrilled to be delving into it with such knowledgeable guides.

Meet Our Guests

Wes Ely is the Grant W. Liddle Chair in Medicine and a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also the Associate Director of Aging Research at the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research and Education Clinical Center and the co-director of the Critical, Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center. He has published 100s of manuscripts on critical illness survivorship and delirium. He also published a book called “Every Deep-Drawn Breath” about his and his patients’ experiences in the ICU and about the ramifications of critical illness. All net proceeds for the book are going to the CIBS Center Endowment for Survivorship

Dale Needham is a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, where he is also the Medical Director of the Critical Care Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Program and the Director of the Outcomes After Critical Illness and Surgery Group. He is the author of 100s of publications focusing on post-ICU outcomes and has received numerous research grants from the NIH and other organizations.

Key Learning Points

Visit our website www.pulmpeeps.com to see the key learning points from this episode summarized in two infographics.

References and links for further reading

  1. Devlin JW, Skrobik Y, Gélinas C, et al. Executive Summary: Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Pain, Agitation/Sedation, Delirium, Immobility, and Sleep Disruption in Adult Patients in the ICU. Critical Care Medicine. 2018;46(9):1532-1548. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000003259
  2. Ely EW. The ABCDEF Bundle: Science and Philosophy of How ICU Liberation Serves Patients and Families. Crit Care Med. 2017;45(2):321-330. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000002175
  3. Mikkelsen ME, Still M, Anderson BJ, et al. Society of Critical Care Medicine’s International Consensus Conference on Prediction and Identification of Long-Term Impairments After Critical Illness. Crit Care Med. 2020;48(11):1670-1679. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000004586
  4. Needham DM, Sepulveda KA, Dinglas VD, et al. Core Outcome Measures for Clinical Research in Acute Respiratory Failure Survivors. An International Modified Delphi Consensus Study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2017;196(9):1122-1130. doi:10.1164/rccm.201702-0372OC
  5. Needham DM, Wozniak AW, Hough CL, et al. Risk Factors for Physical Impairment after Acute Lung Injury in a National, Multicenter Study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2014;189(10):1214-1224. doi:10.1164/rccm.201401-0158OC
  6. Semler MW, Bernard GR, Aaron SD, et al. Identifying Clinical Research Priorities in Adult Pulmonary and Critical Care. NHLBI Working Group Report. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020;202(4):511-523. doi:10.1164/rccm.201908-1595WS
  7. Spruit MA, Holland AE, Singh SJ, Tonia T, Wilson KC, Troosters T. COVID-19: Interim Guidance on Rehabilitation in the Hospital and Post-Hospital Phase from a European Respiratory Society and American Thoracic Society-coordinated International Task Force. Eur Respir J. Published online August 13, 2020:2002197. doi:10.1183/13993003.02197-2020
  8. Turnbull AE, Sepulveda KA, Dinglas VD, Chessare CM, Bingham CO, Needham DM. Core Domains for Clinical Research in Acute Respiratory Failure Survivors: An International Modified Delphi Consensus Study. Crit Care Med. 2017;45(6):1001-1010. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000002435
  9. Ward DS, Absalom AR, Aitken LM, et al. Design of Clinical Trials Evaluating Sedation in Critically Ill Adults Undergoing Mechanical Ventilation: Recommendations From Sedation Consortium on Endpoints and Procedures for Treatment, Education, and Research (SCEPTER) Recommendation III. Crit Care Med. 2021;49(10):1684-1693. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000005049
  10. Ozga D, Krupa S, Witt P, Mędrzycka-Dąbrowska W. Nursing Interventions to Prevent Delirium in Critically Ill Patients in the Intensive Care Unit during the COVID19 Pandemic—Narrative Overview. Healthcare. 2020;8:578. doi:10.3390/healthcare8040578

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18. A Case of Severe Weakness in the ICU

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We are thrilled here @PulmPEEPS to have our first episode with one of our new Associate Editors Luke Hedrick, and our first nephrology consultant Jeff William. Luke will walk us through an interesting case presentation, and we will discuss an approach to severe weakness in our patient in the ICU.

Meet Our Guests

Jeff William is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is also the Associate Director of the Nephrology Fellowship Program. He completed a Medical Education Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and is very involved in residency, fellowship and medical student education.

Patient Presentation

We have a man in his 40s with a past medical history of asthma, hypertension, and acid reflux who was brought in by EMS with back pain and profound proximal lower extremity weakness. He reports mild weakness in his legs which started 2 days ago, but this morning his weakness acutely worsened to the point that he can’t lift his legs out of the bed. He also has some cramping pain in his thighs. He additionally has had mild shortness of breath and yesterday went to an urgent care where he was given steroids and swabbed for COVID (which was negative).

Key Learning Points

**Spoilers Ahead** If you want to think through the case on your own we advise listening to the episode first before looking at the infographics below

Although our patient’s etiology of severe hypokalemia was thought to be secondary to thiazide diuretic use, it is important to be familiar with hypokalemic periodic paralysis.

References

  1. Knochel JP, Schlein EM. On the mechanism of rhabdomyolysis in potassium depletion. J Clin Invest. 1972 Jul;51(7):1750-8. doi: 10.1172/JCI106976.
  2. Wang X, Han D, Li G. Electrocardiographic manifestations in severe hypokalemia. J Int Med Res. 2020 Jan;48(1):300060518811058. doi: 10.1177/0300060518811058.
  3. Venance SL, Cannon SC, Fialho D, Fontaine B, Hanna MG, Ptacek LJ, Tristani-Firouzi M, Tawil R, Griggs RC; CINCH investigators. The primary periodic paralyses: diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment. Brain. 2006 Jan;129(Pt 1):8-17. doi: 10.1093/brain/awh639.
  4. Lin SH, Lin YF, Halperin ML. Hypokalaemia and paralysis. QJM. 2001 Mar;94(3):133-9. doi: 10.1093/qjmed/94.3.133. 
  5. Lin SH, Lin YF, Chen DT, Chu P, Hsu CW, Halperin ML. Laboratory tests to determine the cause of hypokalemia and paralysis. Arch Intern Med. 2004 Jul 26;164(14):1561-6. doi: 10.1001/archinte.164.14.1561.

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12. Undifferentiated Shock Roundtable

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This week the Pulm PEEPs, David Furfaro and Kristina Montemayor, are joined by three outstanding critical care doctors and medical educators to discuss the evaluation of patients with undifferentiated shock. We cover everything from the basics about defining shock, to advanced POCUS techniques to clarify the etiology of shock. Listen today and let us know your favorite technique for evaluating shock in the ICU.

Meet Our Guests

Molly Hayes is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, the Director of the MICU at BIDMC, and the Director of External Education at the Carl J Shapiro Institute for Education and Research. She is also a course director for a yearly CME course on principles of critical care medicine run by BIDMC and HMS.

Nick Mark is a Pulmonologist and Intensivist at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. He is also the founder of ICU One Pager, which produces high yield critical care education one-page guides that have been downloaded by thousands of learners.

Matt Siuba is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and intensivist at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is the associate program director for the Critical Care Medicine fellowship. He founded and runs the website Zentensivist.com, has his own associated podcast, and is a senior editor at CriticalCareNow.com.

Key Learning Points

Key graphics

Courtesy of Nick Mark and ICU One Pager
Courtesy of Matt Siuba
Courtesy of Nick Mark and ICU One Pager

Definition of shock

– Shock is defined as inadequate oxygen delivery to meet the body’s needs. Decreased perfusion and oxygen delivery leads to cell injury and death

– If you define just as hypotension, you will miss people who have cryptic shock, and categorize some people with shock who don’t have it

– Cryptic shock = a patient with normal blood pressure (MAP > 65), but who still has shock based on inadequate O2 delivery

– O2 delivery is broken down in to cardiac output and arterial oxygen content

Causes of shock

Shock can be divided into three large categories:

1) A pump problem – low cardiac output. This includes cardiogenic and obstructive shock. Make sure to remember to look for tamponade and valvulopathies.

2) A pipe problem – low systemic vascular resistance. This includes distributive shock. Distributive shock is most often due to sepsis but can be due to anaphylaxis, endocrinopathies, cirrhosis, or spinal shock.

3) A tank problem – low preload. This includes hypovolemic and hemorrhagic shock. Make sure to remember about high intrathoracic pressure, which can decrease effective preload.

Examining a patient with undifferentiated shock

– See if the patient is on the “Shock BUS” by examining their brain (mental status), urine output, and skin

– Feel if their skin is warm vs cold and if it is mottled

– Feel the patient’s pulses to see if they are bounding, normal, or thready

Point of Care Ultrasound

– “Ultrasound is the new stethoscope”

– The first step is to always look at the heart and look for chamber size and function. You can then look for pericardial effusion

– Point of care ultrasound then includes looking at the lungs for signs of fluid overload, consolidation, or pneumothorax

– A complete ultrasound also involves looking at the abdomen and at the extremities for DVT

– More specific ultrasound techniques include looking at:

1) IVC exam to estimate right atrial pressure. This test is often misused. It is most helpful in states when the patient has low stroke volume and trying to figure out if they have cardiac limitation to stroke volume vs if they are hypovolemic.

2) Velocity time index as a measure of cardiac output to trend with interventions

References and links for further reading

  1. Vincent JL, De Backer D. Circulatory shock. N Engl J Med. 2013;369(18):1726-1734. doi:10.1056/NEJMra1208943
  2. Seymour CW, Liu VX, Iwashyna TJ, et al. Assessment of Clinical Criteria for Sepsis: For the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3). JAMA. 2016;315(8):762-774. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.0288
  3. Chukwulebe SB, Gaieski DF, Bhardwaj A, Mulugeta-Gordon L, Shofer FS, Dean AJ. Early hemodynamic assessment using NICOM in patients at risk of developing Sepsis immediately after emergency department triage. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine. 2021;29(1):23. doi:10.1186/s13049-021-00833-1
  4. Hernández G, Ospina-Tascón GA, Damiani LP, et al. Effect of a Resuscitation Strategy Targeting Peripheral Perfusion Status vs Serum Lactate Levels on 28-Day Mortality Among Patients With Septic Shock: The ANDROMEDA-SHOCK Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2019;321(7):654-664. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.0071
  5. Wang J, Zhou D, Gao Y, Wu Z, Wang X, Lv C. Effect of VTILVOT variation rate on the assessment of fluid responsiveness in septic shock patients. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020;99(47):e22702. doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000022702
  6. Sweeney DA, Wiley BM. Integrated Multiorgan Bedside Ultrasound for the Diagnosis and Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock. Semin Respir Crit Care Med. 2021;42(5):641-649. doi:10.1055/s-0041-1733896
  7. Yuan S, He H, Long Y. Interpretation of venous-to-arterial carbon dioxide difference in the resuscitation of septic shock patients. J Thorac Dis. 2019;11(Suppl 11):S1538-S1543. doi:10.21037/jtd.2019.02.79
  8. Volpicelli G, Lamorte A, Tullio M, et al. Point-of-care multiorgan ultrasonography for the evaluation of undifferentiated hypotension in the emergency department. Intensive Care Med. 2013;39(7):1290-1298. doi:10.1007/s00134-013-2919-7
  9. Perera P, Mailhot T, Riley D, Mandavia D. The RUSH exam: Rapid Ultrasound in SHock in the evaluation of the critically lll. Emerg Med Clin North Am. 2010;28(1):29-56, vii. doi:10.1016/j.emc.2009.09.010

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Radiology Rounds – 3/8/22

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We’re excited to bring you another Radiology Rounds today that combines pulmonary and critical care.

The patient is diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and requires a left bronchial stent. She develops acute hypoxemic and hypercapnic respiratory failure requiring intubation.

You are concerned that she has increased airway resistance as a result of stent migration. What would you expect to see on the ventilator if this is the case?

Here are some tips from ICU OnePager on interpreting high peak pressures on the ventilator

6. PEEP in ARDS Roundtable

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This week on Pulm PEEPs, Dave Furfaro and Kristina Montemayor are joined by experts in the field of critical care medicine and ARDS to discuss all things PEEP! Drs. Roy Brower, Sarina Sahetya, Todd Rice, and Elias Baedorf-Kassis discuss everything ranging from PEEP basics to their approach to optimizing PEEP in patients with ARDS.

Meet Our Guests

Roy Brower is a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins where he served as the MICU director for over 33 years, and he has been one of the pioneers for lung-protective ventilation for patients with ARDS.

Elias Baedorf-Kassis is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He is the Medical Director of Respiratory Care at BIDMC, and helps lead the VV-ECMO program.

Todd Rice is an Associate Profess of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University and Vice President for Clinical Trial Innovation and Operations in the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

Sarina Sahetya is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and does research in the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS.

Key Learning Points

Driving Pressure figure from Amato et al. 2015. Stress index figure from Hess 2014.
  • The plateau pressure can be measured on the ventilator with an inspiratory hold maneuver
  • Extrinsic PEEP is applied by the ventiilator, while intrinsic PEEP, or auto-PEEP, occurs when there is incomplete emptying of the lungs due to inadequate time for exhalation. This often happens with obstructive lung disease. Intrinsic PEEP can be measured on the ventilator with an end-expiratory hold maneuver
  • We utilize PEEP in all intubated patients to minimize atelectasis. When patients are supine, the heart moves back 2 cm and the diaphragm raises by 2 cm, so often the left lower lobe of the lung is compressed and there is atelectasis there. This is often seen on CXR:

References, Image Sources, and Further Reading

  1. Higher versus Lower Positive End-Expiratory Pressures in Patients with the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine. 2004;351(4):327-336. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa032193
  2. Amato MBP, Meade MO, Slutsky AS, et al. Driving Pressure and Survival in the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine. 2015;372(8):747-755. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1410639
  3. Writing Group for the Alveolar Recruitment for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Trial (ART) Investigators. Effect of Lung Recruitment and Titrated Positive End-Expiratory Pressure (PEEP) vs Low PEEP on Mortality in Patients With Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2017;318(14):1335-1345. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.14171
  4. Beitler JR, Sarge T, Banner-Goodspeed VM, et al. Effect of Titrating Positive End-Expiratory Pressure (PEEP) With an Esophageal Pressure-Guided Strategy vs an Empirical High PEEP-Fio2 Strategy on Death and Days Free From Mechanical Ventilation Among Patients With Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2019;321(9):846-857. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.0555
  5. LaFollette R, Hojnowski K, Norton J, DiRocco J, Carney D, Nieman G. Using pressure–volume curves to set proper PEEP in acute lung injury. Nursing in Critical Care. 2007;12(5):231-241. doi:10.1111/j.1478-5153.2007.00224.x
  6. Hess DR. Respiratory mechanics in mechanically ventilated patients. Respir Care. 2014;59(11):1773-1794. doi:10.4187/respcare.03410
  7. Sahetya SK, Hager DN, Stephens RS, Needham DM, Brower RG. PEEP Titration to Minimize Driving Pressure in Subjects With ARDS: A Prospective Physiological Study. Respir Care. 2020;65(5):583-589. doi:10.4187/respcare.07102
  8. Umbrello M, Chiumello D. Interpretation of the transpulmonary pressure in the critically ill patient. Ann Transl Med. 2018;6(19):383. doi:10.21037/atm.2018.05.31
  9. Kenny JES. ICU Physiology in 1000 Words: Driving Pressure & Stress Index. PulmCCM. Published February 13, 2016. Accessed January 1, 2022. https://pulmccm.org/review-articles/icu-physiology-in-1000-words-driving-pressure-stress-index/

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