ABSTRACT
A 10-year retrospective analysis has been carried out of 114 patients dialysed for acute renal failure. Fifty-eight patients, predominantly suffering from multiple organ failure, required treatment in an Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU); 56 less severely ill patients were treated in a Renal Unit. Overall survival in the former group was 36% and in the latter group 63%. In the first 5 years of the study, survival in the ITU patients was 31% and in the second 5 years, was 38% in spite of a trend towards increased severity of illness. These results challenge the view that haemodialysis is rarely worth-while in patients with multiple organ failure, and suggest that current management techniques have improved prognosis. The most important adverse factors continue to be old age, sepsis and gastrointestinal disease.
Subject(s)
Acute Kidney Injury/mortality , Acute Kidney Injury/complications , Acute Kidney Injury/therapy , Female , Humans , Intensive Care Units , Male , Middle Aged , Renal Dialysis , Retrospective StudiesABSTRACT
A 15-year prospective study was carried out of 44 patients with accidental hypothermia (mean age 60 years) admitted to an intensive therapy unit. The lowest core temperature recorded in each patient ranged from 20.0 to 34.3 degrees C. The precipitating factors were poisoning (by drugs, alcohol, or coal gas) in 25 cases and various illnesses in 19. Rewarming was achieved in 42 patients by applying a radiant heat cradle over the torso, and in two patients by mediastinal irrigation with warmed fluids. Twelve patients died, but only two during the period of rewarming. Thus rewarming may be consistently and safely achieved irrespective of the cause of hypothermia, and normal body temperature may be regained as rapidly as is compatible with adequate tissue perfusion and oxygenation. Surface rewarming of the torso is perhaps the simplest technique available, but internal rewarming procedures may be desirable or essential in the presence of, for example, profound hypothermia, severe hypotension, or ventricular fibrillation. Mortality was attributable to underlying factors or disease and not to hypothermia.
