Therapeutic Hypothermia in ICUs.

Recent research on Therapeutic Hypothermia (TH) post cardiac arrest has raised questions about its implementation and benefits. TH to 32-34 degrees C is still included in international guidelines for post-cardiac arrest care. We investigated how Irish ICUs are utilising TH as part of their management of patients post cardiac arrest using a telephone survey of all Irish ICUs. All 25 ICUs in Ireland participated. As of quarter 2 2014, TH was part of post-cardiac arrest management in 20 ICUs (80%), which is similar to international figures. 2011 was the median year for units to start using TH in Ireland. Over half 13 (52%) of Irish ICUs have experience with cooling more than 10 patients. Despite lack of evidence for its benefit, 12 ICUs (48%) use TH for OHCA non VF-VT arrests. Lack of resources was cited by 2 ICUs (8%) as well as no local consensus by 1 ICU (4%) prevented a small minority adopting the protocol. Similar methods of inducing and maintaining TH were found in Ireland as with overseas. Interest was expressed in recent research on TH and in 2 ICUs local practice had changed because of it. An updated international resuscitation guideline is awaited.

Use of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for comparison of similar but distinguishable isolates of Shigella sonnei collected in Ireland and Italy.

Comparison of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns (generated with XbaI and BlnI) of Shigella sonnei isolates from Ireland and Italy suggests that two possibly distantly related lineages are present in both countries. Smaller, more closely related groups, including isolates from Ireland and Italy, were also noted. These groups raise the possibility that the dissemination of clonal groups of S. sonnei may have occurred in recent years.