‘We are all aware of the importance of early diagnosis and rapid appropriate treatment of patients with severe sepsis. Yet, many patients still do not receive satisfactory early management and the application of recent guidelines for sepsis management is still inadequate,’ writes Jean-Louis Vincent MD PhD, from the Intensive Care Department, Erasme Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles,…
In Europe, nosocomial infections cause about 25,000 deaths every year. Copper has strong antibiotic effects and may reduce hospital acquired infections.
In terms of health politics, no hospital-related subject is more explosive than hygiene. However, although this reaction is common across Europe, approaches towards tackling nosocomial infections varies among our EU countries. Karoline Laarmann reports from Germany and Jane MacDougall from France…
This March, Heinz-Dieter Hilgers arrived for his once-monthly check-up at Ruhrlandklinik in Essen. Last June, his situation was far less relaxed. Suffering chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for almost two years, he had been listed for a lung transplant since April 2009. During his wait for an organ, his illness increased.
Jean-Louis Vincent, Chairman of the Dept of Intensive Care, Erasme Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles, welcomes visitors to this year’s International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine.
Although there is still disagreement as to ‘how’, when it comes to the question of whether the glucose level affects the prognosis for intensive care patients, the answer is a definite ‘yes’. ‘
Different tests bring different results, and results of the same types of test vary from laboratory to laboratory. "In the case of test procedures for autoimmune diseases there are incredible discrepancies," confirmed Professor Manfred Herold, head of the Laboratory for Rheumatism at the University Clinic for Internal Medicine One, Innsbruck. The reason: "There are no standards for…
Improvements in microfluidics and detection technologies are beginning to expand the range of point-of-care diagnostics beyond simple blood chemistry tests to sophisticated immuno-assays and molecular diagnostics. Though yet to see much adoption in European hospitals, these point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are coming into use in the USA, initially in emergency rooms and ICUs where fast results are…
Prior to October’s 3rd Annual Congress of the Austrian Society for Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Chemistry in Salzburg, Austria, laboratory experts conveyed their opinions in an interview with Michael Krassnitzer from European Hospital.
Does diabetes further increase the risk of death in patients diagnosed with cancer? A team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, has discovered something very sobering: Cancer patients are 51% to 85% more likely to die after surgical resection if they had pre-existing diabetes.
The MRSA problem has been ignored almost stoically in many European countries for the past 20 years. Thus the number of resistant Staphylococci cases exploded from 1% in 1990 around 25% in 2010. However, the recognition that an infection can result in additional hospital costs of up to €10,000 has led to a change in thinking. The Netherlands, for example, declared war on MRSA with ‘search and…
Professor Norbert Suttorp and his team at the Clinic for Infectology and Pneumonology, Charité University Hospital Berlin, have been working on the understanding of the basic mechanisms of inflammation and infection -- and utilising them. Professor Suttorp has been working for many years on questions relating to the subject Therapy in addition to antibiotics.
The UK, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands already have it - an official obligation to report MRSA cases to their health authorities. Since 1 July 2009 German law has also required notification. Professor Herbert Hof, Director of the Institute for Microbiology and Hygiene at the University Hospital Mannheim, Germany, explained why such notification became essential.
At this year's Euroanaesthesia 2009, in Milan, the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) presented for the third time the “Dräger Award for Intensive Care Medicine”. The 10,000 Euro prize went to the working group studying “Effects of ventilation with 100% oxygen during early hyperdynamic porcine fecal peritonitis” in the Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Ulm, Germany.
Urinary tract infections caused by catheterisation are a common and nasty affliction for the disabled, elderly and hospital patients.
For the first time in 33 years, wound healing was the focus of a dedicated session at the 33rd annual VEITHsymposium for vascular surgeons in New York (11/06). This underscores the fact that wound healing is heading increasingly towards a speciality that warrants the special attention of dedicated people willing to embrace an interdisciplinary approach to non-healing or complex wounds.
The methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one of the most common causes of life threatening infections among hospital patients. What makes the bacterium that dangerous is the fact, that due to unspecific symptoms and long lasting testing procedures its detection takes too long. A new test that delivers results in just five hours now offers the possibility of a MRSA screening for…
Nosocomial infections are all too common in our hospitals. For example, in Germany alone (according to the German Company for Hospital Hygiene - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Krankenhaushygiene), each year 40,000 patients contract bacterial infections, some fatal.
There is a need for a national institue to co-ordinate education and certification in minimally surgery.
Is a sharp weapon being blunted? Article by Heidi Heinhold.
It is the largest meeting of its kind with 5,000 participants.
The 25th International Symposium of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, to be held at the Congress Centre in Brussels, will see us celebrate our Silver Anniversary, when we will reflect on 25 years of meetings that have encouraged the presentation, discussion, and debate of intensive care medicine, and when we also look forward to what the next 25 years may bring.
Germany - The third Hugo Schottmüller Prize, awarded by the German Sepsis Society (DSG), has been presented to Dr Marc W Merx, of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technical University (RWTH) Hospital, Aachen, for his paper 'HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitor Simvastatin Profoundly Improves Survival in a Murine Model of Sepsis', published in the journal Circulation.