Critical Care Medicine: April 2008, Volume 36, Issue 4

Feature Articles
1031-1042
Veterans Affairs intensive care unit risk adjustment model: Validation, updating, recalibration
Marta L. Render, MD; James Deddens, PhD; Ron Freyberg, MS; Peter Almenoff, MD; Alfred F. Connors, Jr, MD; Douglas Wagner, PhD; Timothy P. Hofer, MD, MSc

1043-1048
Feasibility of very high-frequency ventilation in adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome
Henry E. Fessler, MD; David N. Hager, MD; Roy G. Brower, MD

1049-1058
Quality of professional society guidelines and consensus conference statements in critical care
Tasnim Sinuff, MD, PhD; Rakesh V. Patel, MD, PharmD, MSc; Neill K. J. Adhikari, MD, CM, MSc; Maureen O. Meade, MD, MSc; Holger J. Schünemann, MD, PhD; Deborah J. Cook, MD, MSc

Clinical Investigations
1083-1088
Use of sedatives, opioids, and neuromuscular blocking agents in patients with acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome
for the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Network

1089-1096
Efficacy and safety of intravenous infusion of doripenem versus imipenem in ventilator-associated pneumonia: A multicenter, randomized study
Jean Chastre, MD; Richard Wunderink, MD; Philippe Prokocimer, MD; Michael Lee, PhD; Koné Kaniga, PhD; Ian Friedland, MD

1097-1104
Effect of infections on 30-day mortality among critically ill patients hospitalized in and out of the intensive care unit
George Mnatzaganian, RN, MPH; Charles L. Sprung, MD; Yana Zitser-Gurevich, MD, MPH; Noya Galai, PhD; Nethanel Goldschmidt, MA; Leon Levi, MD, MPH; Yaron Bar-Lavi, MD; Fabio Zveibil, MD; Inbal Weiss Salz, MD, MPH; Anat Ekka-Zohar, RN, MPH; Elisheva Simchen, MD, MPH

1105-1113
Building a continuous multicenter infection surveillance system in the intensive care unit: Findings from the initial data set of 9,493 patients from 71 Italian intensive care units
for the Italian Group for the Evaluation of Interventions in Intensive Care Medicine

1114-1118
Transfusion of fresh frozen plasma in critically ill surgical patients is associated with an increased risk of infection
Babak Sarani, MD, FACS; W Jonathan Dunkman, BA; Laura Dean;; Seema Sonnad, PhD; Jeffrey I. Rohrbach, RN, MSN; Vicente H. Gracias, MD, FACS

1119-1124
Patients with respiratory failure increase ambulation after transfer to an intensive care unit where early activity is a priority
George E. Thomsen, MD; Gregory L. Snow, PhD; Larissa Rodriguez, AS; Ramona O. Hopkins, PhD

1125-1128
Gene-expression profiling of Gram-positive and Gram-negative sepsis in critically ill patients
Benjamin M.P. Tang, MD; Anthony S. McLean, MD; Ian W. Dawes, PhD; Stephen J. Huang, PhD; Mark J. Cowley, PhD; Ruby C.Y. Lin, PhD

1129-1137
Impact of minimal increases in serum creatinine on outcome in patients after cardiothoracic surgery: Do we have to revise current definitions of acute renal failure?
Andrea Lassnigg, MD; Edith R. Schmid, MD; Michael Hiesmayr, MD; Christian Falk, MD; Wilfred Druml, MD; Peter Bauer, PhD; Daniel Schmidlin, MD

1138-1146
Using the medical record to evaluate the quality of end-of-life care in the intensive care unit
Bradford J. Glavan, MD; Ruth A. Engelberg, PhD; Lois Downey, MA; J Randall Curtis, MD, MPH

1147-1154
Influence of renal dysfunction on the accuracy of procalcitonin for the diagnosis of postoperative infection after vascular surgery
Julien Amour, MD, PhD; Aurélie Birenbaum, MD; Olivier Langeron, MD, PhD; Yannick Le Manach, MD; Michèle Bertrand, MD; Pierre Coriat, MD; Bruno Riou, MD, PhD; Maguy Bernard, MD, PhD; Pierre Hausfater, MD, PhD

1155-1157
A simple device to increase rates of compliance in maintaining 30-degree head-of-bed elevation in ventilated patients
Zev Williams, MD, PhD; Rodney Chan, MD; Edward Kelly, MD

1158-1167
Discordance between perception and treatment practices associated with intensive care unit-acquired bacteriuria and funguria: A Canadian physician survey
Clarence Chant, PharmD, BCPS; Claudia C. Dos Santos, MD; Paola Saccucci, PharmD; Orla M. Smith, RN, MN, CNCC(C); John C. Marshall, MD, FRCS(C); Jan O. Friedrich, MD, DPhil, FRCP(C)

1168-1174
The costs and cost-effectiveness of an integrated sepsis treatment protocol
Daniel Talmor, MD, MPH; Dan Greenberg, PhD; Michael D. Howell, MD; Alan Lisbon, MD; Victor Novack, MD, PhD; Nathan Shapiro, MD, MPH

1175-1183
Validation of a predictive method for an accurate assessment of resting energy expenditure in medical mechanically ventilated patients
Jean-François Savard, MD, FRCPC; Christophe Faisy, MD, PhD; Nicolas Lerolle, MD; Emmanuel Guerot, MD; Jean-Luc Diehl, MD; Jean-Yves Fagon, MD, PhD

1184-1188
Clinical outcome and prognostic factors of patients with pyogenic liver abscess requiring intensive care
Wei Chen, MD; Chia-Hung Chen, MD; Kuo-Liang Chiu, MD; Hsueh-Chou Lai, MD; Kuan-Fu Liao, MD; Yung-Jen Ho, MD; Wu-Huei Hsu, MD

Neurologic Critical Care
1290-1296
Impact of age of transfused blood on cerebral oxygenation in male patients with severe traumatic brain injury
Santiago Ramón Leal-Noval, MD, PhD; Manuel Muñoz-Gómez, Prof MD, PhD; Victoria Arellano-Orden, MD; Antonio Marín-Caballos, MD, PhD; Rosario Amaya-Villar, MD, PhD; Ana Marín, MD; Antonio Puppo-Moreno, MD, PhD; Carmen Ferrándiz-Millón, MD; Juan Manuel Flores-Cordero, MD, PhD; Francisco Murillo-Cabezas, MD, PhD