Microbiome in Critical illness: An Unconventional and Unknown Ally

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Zanza ◽  
Tatsiana Romenskaya ◽  
Duraiyah Thangathurai ◽  
Veronica Ojetti ◽  
Angela Saviano ◽  
...  

Background: The digestive tract represents an interface between the external environment and the body where the interaction of a complex polymicrobial ecology has an important influence on health and disease. The physiological mechanisms that are altered during the hospitalization and in the intensive care unit (ICU) contribute to the pathobiota’s growth. Intestinal dysbiosis occurs within hours of being admitted to ICU. This may be due to different factors, such as alterations of normal intestinal transit, administration of variuos medications or alterations in the intestinal wall which causes a cascade of events that will lead to the increase of nitrates and decrease of oxygen concentration, liberation of free radicals. Objective: This work aims to report the latest updates on the microbiota’s contribution to developing sepsis in patients in the ICU department. In this short review were reviewed the latest scientific findings on the mechanisms of intestinal immune defenses performed both locally and systemically. In addition, we considered it necessary to review the literature to report the current best treatment strategies to prevent the infection spread which can bring systemic infections in patients admitted to ICU. Material and Methods: This review has been written to answer at three main questions: what are the main intestinal flora’s defense mechanisms that help us to prevent the risk of developing systemic diseases on a day-to-day basis? What are the main dysbiosis’ systemic abnormalities? What are the modern strategies that are used in the ICU patients to prevent the infection spread? Using the combination of following keywords: microbiota and ICU, ICU and gut, microbiota and critical illness, microbiota and critical care, microbiota and sepsis, microbiota and infection, gastrointestinal immunity,in the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, the Cochrane Library, medline and pubmed, google scholar, ovid/wiley. Finally, we reviewed and selected 72 articles. We also consulted the site ClinicalTrials.com to find out studies that are recently conducted or ongoing. Results: The critical illness can alter intestinal bacterial flora leading to homeostasis disequilibrium. Despite numerous mechanisms, such as epithelial cells with calciform cells that together build a mechanical barrier for pathogenic bacteria, the presence of mucous associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) which stimulates an immune response through the production of interferon-gamma (IFN-y) and THN-a or by stimulating lymphocytes T helper-2 produces anti-inflammatory cytokines. But these defenses can be altered following a hospitalization in ICU and lead to serious complications such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), health care associated pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), Systemic infection and multiple organ failure (MOF), but also in the development of coronary artery disease (CAD). In addition, the microbiota has a significant impact on the development of intestinal complications and the severity of the SARS-COVID-19 patients. Conclusion: The microbiota is recognized as one of the important factors that can worsen the clinical conditions of patients who are already very frailty in intensive care unit. At the same time, the microbiota also plays a crucial role in the prevention of ICU associated complications. By using the resources, we have available, such as probiotics, symbiotics or fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), we can preserve the integrity of the microbiota and the GUT, which will later help maintain homeostasis in ICU patients.

This case focuses on long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness by asking the question: What is the prevalence of long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness, and does the duration of delirium and use of sedative or analgesic medications affect cognitive outcomes? This study demonstrated that 74% of adult patients with critical illness experience delirium during their hospital course. Furthermore, patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting commonly experience global cognition and executive function deficits at 3 and 12 months following hospitalization. These findings highlight the importance of careful delirium surveillance in ICU patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-397
Author(s):  
Jahanzeb Malik

Critical illness has lasting consequences on the mind and the body. Acute sequelae include a decline in cognitive function known as delirium. Increased interest in improving outcomes for intensive care unit survivors without a high incidence of delirium has initiated a focus on an array of nonpharmacologic interventions in many countries. One such intervention is animalassisted intervention. As the role of animals in human healing is being recognized by clinicians, need is increasing for formal and professionally directed therapies. This review ascertains the effect of interaction with animals on critically ill patients. Emerging evidence indicates that animal-assisted intervention improves the efficacy of critical care regarding primary symptoms and secondary factors of delirium.


Diagnostics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 966
Author(s):  
Humberto D.J. Gonzalez Marrero ◽  
Erik V. Stålberg ◽  
Gerald Cooray ◽  
Rebeca Corpeno Kalamgi ◽  
Yvette Hedström ◽  
...  

Introduction. The acquired muscle paralysis associated with modern critical care can be of neurogenic or myogenic origin, yet the distinction between these origins is hampered by the precision of current diagnostic methods. This has resulted in the pooling of all acquired muscle paralyses, independent of their origin, into the term Intensive Care Unit Acquired Muscle Weakness (ICUAW). This is unfortunate since the acquired neuropathy (critical illness polyneuropathy, CIP) has a slower recovery than the myopathy (critical illness myopathy, CIM); therapies need to target underlying mechanisms and every patient deserves as accurate a diagnosis as possible. This study aims at evaluating different diagnostic methods in the diagnosis of CIP and CIM in critically ill, immobilized and mechanically ventilated intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods. ICU patients with acquired quadriplegia in response to critical care were included in the study. A total of 142 patients were examined with routine electrophysiological methods, together with biochemical analyses of myosin:actin (M:A) ratios of muscle biopsies. In addition, comparisons of evoked electromyographic (EMG) responses in direct vs. indirect muscle stimulation and histopathological analyses of muscle biopsies were performed in a subset of the patients. Results. ICU patients with quadriplegia were stratified into five groups based on the hallmark of CIM, i.e., preferential myosin loss (myosin:actin ratio, M:A) and classified as severe (M:A < 0.5; n = 12), moderate (0.5 ≤ M:A < 1; n = 40), mildly moderate (1 ≤ M:A < 1.5; n = 49), mild (1.5 ≤ M:A < 1.7; n = 24) and normal (1.7 ≤ M:A; n = 19). Identical M:A ratios were obtained in the small (4–15 mg) muscle samples, using a disposable semiautomatic microbiopsy needle instrument, and the larger (>80 mg) samples, obtained with a conchotome instrument. Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) duration was increased and amplitude decreased in patients with preferential myosin loss, but deviations from this relationship were observed in numerous patients, resulting in only weak correlations between CMAP properties and M:A. Advanced electrophysiological methods measuring refractoriness and comparing CMAP amplitude after indirect nerve vs. direct muscle stimulation are time consuming and did not increase precision compared with conventional electrophysiological measurements in the diagnosis of CIM. Low CMAP amplitude upon indirect vs. direct stimulation strongly suggest a neurogenic lesion, i.e., CIP, but this was rarely observed among the patients in this study. Histopathological diagnosis of CIM/CIP based on enzyme histochemical mATPase stainings were hampered by poor quantitative precision of myosin loss and the impact of pathological findings unrelated to acute quadriplegia. Conclusion. Conventional electrophysiological methods are valuable in identifying the peripheral origin of quadriplegia in ICU patients, but do not reliably separate between neurogenic vs. myogenic origins of paralysis. The hallmark of CIM, preferential myosin loss, can be reliably evaluated in the small samples obtained with the microbiopsy instrument. The major advantage of this method is that it is less invasive than conventional muscle biopsies, reducing the risk of bleeding in ICU patients, who are frequently receiving anticoagulant treatment, and it can be repeated multiple times during follow up for monitoring purposes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 175628482093944
Author(s):  
Alexa Choy ◽  
Daniel E. Freedberg

In the intensive care unit (ICU), colonization of the gastrointestinal tract by potentially pathogenic bacteria is common and often precedes clinical infection. Though effective in the short term, traditional antibiotic-based decolonization methods may contribute to rising resistance in the long term. Novel therapies instead focus on restoring gut microbiome equilibrium to achieve pathogen colonization resistance. This review summarizes the existing data regarding microbiome-based approaches to gastrointestinal pathogen colonization in ICU patients with a focus on prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics.


Author(s):  
Nicola Alessandro Nasuelli ◽  
Roberto Pettinaroli ◽  
Laura Godi ◽  
Claudio Savoini ◽  
Fabiola De Marchi ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 1323-1331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin E. Schwab ◽  
An Q. To ◽  
Jennifer Chang ◽  
Bonnie Ronish ◽  
Dale M. Needham ◽  
...  

Objective: In the intensive care unit (ICU), prolonged inactivity is common, increasing patients’ risk for adverse outcomes, including ICU-acquired weakness. Hence, interventions to minimize inactivity are gaining popularity, highlighting actigraphy, a measure of activity involving a wristwatch-like accelerometer, as a method to inform these efforts. Therefore, we performed a systematic review of studies that used actigraphy to measure patient activity in the ICU setting. Data Sources: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and ProQuest from inception until December 2016. Study Selection: Two reviewers independently screened studies for inclusion. A study was eligible for inclusion if it was published in a peer-reviewed journal and used actigraphy to measure activity in ≥5 ICU patients. Data Extraction: Two reviewers independently performed data abstraction and risk of bias assessment. Abstracted actigraphy-based activity data included total activity time and activity counts. Results: Of 16 studies (607 ICU patients) identified, 14 (88%) were observational, 2 (12%) were randomized control trials, and 5 (31%) were published after 2009. Mean patient activity levels per 15 to 60 second epoch ranged from 25 to 37 daytime and 2 to 19 nighttime movements. Actigraphy was evaluated in the context of ICU and post-ICU outcomes in 11 (69%) and 5 (31%) studies, respectively, and demonstrated potential associations between actigraphy-based activity levels and delirium, sedation, pain, anxiety, time to extubation, and length of stay. Conclusion: Actigraphy has demonstrated that patients are profoundly inactive in the ICU with actigraphy-based activity levels potentially associated with important measures, such as delirium, sedation, and length of stay. Larger and more rigorous studies are needed to further evaluate these associations and the overall utility of actigraphy in the ICU setting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh Ostadi ◽  
Kamran Shadvar ◽  
Sarvin Sanaie ◽  
Ata Mahmoodpoor ◽  
Seied Hadi Saghaleini

Thrombocytopenia is a frequent finding in intensive care unit especially among adults and medical ICU patients.Thrombocytopenia is defined as a platelet count less than 100×109/l in ICU setting. Platelets are made in the bone marrow from megakaryocytes. Although not fully understood, proplatelets transform into platelets in the lung. The body tries to maintain platelet count relatively constant throughout life. Pathophysiology of thrombocytopenia can be defined by hemodilution, elevated levels of platelet consumption, compromise of platelet production, increased platelet sequestration and increased platelet destruction. Unlike in other situations, absolute platelet count alone does not provide sufficient data in characterizing thrombocytopenia in ICU patients. In such cases, the time course of changes in platelet count is also pivotal. The dynamics of platelet count decrease vary considerably between different ICU patient populations including trauma, major surgery and minor surgery/medical conditions.There are strong evidences available that delay in platelet count restoration in ICU patients is an indicator of a bad outcome. How to cite this:Ostadi Z, Shadvar K, Sanaie S, Mahmoodpoor A, Saghaleini SH. Thrombocytopenia in the intensive care unit. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(1):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.1.19 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


Author(s):  
Kamil Witosz ◽  
Olga Wojnarowicz ◽  
Łukasz J. Krzych

Introduction: Anaemia is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes. Diagnostic blood loss (DBL) may contribute to its occurrence. We aimed to evaluate DBL and its impact on haemoglobin (HGB) concentration and developing anaemia in the intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods: A study group comprised of 36 adult ICU patients. DBL during 7 consecutive, post-admission days was calculated. Anaemia occurrence was assessed using the WHO thresholds. Data on HGB and haematocrit (HCT) was subjected to analysis. Results: Upon admission, 24 (67%) patients were diagnosed with anaemia, on the eighth day 29 (80%) subjects (with 6 new cases). The median volume of blood collected was 143.15 mL (IQR 121.4–161.65) per week. No differences in DBL were found between the subjects with newly developed anaemia and their counterparts (p=0.4). The median drop of HGB (HbΔ) was 18 gL–1 (IQR 5–28) and the median drop of haematocrit (HtΔ) was 4.55% (IQR 1.1–7.95). There was no correlation between neither HbΔ and DBL (p=0.8) nor HtΔ and DBL (p=0.7). There were also no differences in HbΔ/HtΔ when age, gender or the primary critical illness were taken into account for the analysis (p>0.05 for all). The 7-day fluid balance was associated with haemoglobin drop (R=0.45; p=0.006). Conclusions: Anaemia is frequent in ICU patients. Diagnostic blood loss in our institution is acceptable and seems to protect patients against significant iatrogenic blood loss and subsequent anaemia. Dilutional anaemia may interfere with the results so before-after interventional research is needed to explore this interesting topic.


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