early goal directed therapy

November 19, 2017

The Resuscitation Tracks 1: Portal Vein POCUS with Dr. Andre Denault. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So this is one of the key discussions I wanted to have in my process of synthesizing my resuscitation algorithm. Dr. Denault is the one guy I’d call a mentor, and I think one of the rare and true clinician-scholar, who is just as comfortable being the anaesthetist/intensivist at the bedside of the crashing patient as he is being the keynote speaker in major conferences, or writing the textbooks that lead the field in acute care/perioperative TEE and critical care POCUS.

So to put some perspective to this discussion, back in 2014 I organized a resuscitation afternoon for internists with Andre and another awesome guy you probably all know, Haney Mallemat (@criticalcarenow). In a quick 15 minute discussion between talks, he shared with me the most recent of his discoveries, portal vein POCUS as a marker of right-sided failure/volume overload in his post-op cardiac patients, and how aggressively managing these resulted in much improved post-operative courses in terms of weaning, vasopressors and even delirium.

Interesting stuff.

So here you are:

So I’ll let you all ponder that and I would really like to hear comments and ideas. Sometime in the next few weeks I’ll be finalizing my resus algorithm – which will not be a recipe approach, as you might suspect if you have been following this blog, and will rely heavily on POCUS and the clinical exam.

cheers and thanks for reading and listening!

Don’t miss Andre running a POCUS workshop on PV/HV at  next april!

Philippe

 

August 25, 2016

MOPOCUS: A great synopsis by Ha & Toh. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

Just came across this review and figured I should share. The authors make a great synopsis and review of POCUS in acute illness:

MOPOCUS Review by Ha &To

The only thing I would add to this is a more physiological way to assess the IVC, which I’ve blogged about here.  Sadly, I’ve heard a few people stating how they didn’t want to get into the dogma of IVC ultrasound, that it wasn’t reliable, etc.  The IVC doesn’t lie. It’s just not a recipe. The IVC findings have to be integrated into the rest of the echo graphic and clinical examination.  Trying to use it as a single value is akin to using serum Na+ as a diagnostic test for volume. It works only sometimes.

Please spread among the POCUS non-believers. We’ll convert them, slowly but surely. But the sooner, the better for the patients. Again, there’s no excuse to practice acute care without ultrasound. It’s not right. I’m not saying every probe-toting MD is better than one without, but everyone would up their game by adding POCUS, once past the learning curve!

cheers!

 

Philippe

August 5, 2016

Tom Woodcock: The Revised Starling Principle and The Glycocalyx! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

Screen Shot 2016-08-05 at 11.57.11 PM

So today, I had the chance of having a private tutorial with Dr. Thomas Woodcock (@thomaswoodcock) about the glycocalyx and the revised Starling principles.  For anyone interested in fluid resuscitation, this is an area you have to delve into. The basic principles we all learned (which are still being taught) are basically the physiological equivalent of the stick man we all started drawing as toddlers: overly simplified and far from an accurate representation of reality.

Now my first disclaimer is that I have been a colloid supporter for many years. My physiological logic for that had been to minimize the crystalloid spillover into inflamed/septic areas, particularly the lungs and abdomen, when those are the septic sources. However, I was likely misled by my education and lack of knowledge about the endothelium.

So I stumbled upon the whole glycocalyx thing a couple years ago, and this prompted me to try more enteral fluids – the only way fluids normally ever enter the vasculature – but little else. Aware that it’s there, but unsure what to do about it.

Now a year and a half ago, Andre Denault, my closest thing to a mentor, casually dropped the line to me about albumin not working. “Don’t use it. It doesn’t act the way we think it does.”  But it was a brief chat, and I didn’t get to pick his brain about it.  Just a few weeks ago, I discuss with Jon Emile (Kenny), and he’s coming to the same conclusion.  Damn. I’m finding it a bit harder to hang on to my albumin use, which is beginning to look a bit dogmatic and religious.

Here is Jon-Emile’s take on it – a must-read.

Here is Tom Woodcock’s site and article – another must-read.

And here is my discussion (in two parts) with Tom (to skip the silence, skip forward to about 30 seconds into each – sorry my editing skills are limited!)

 

Bottom line?

Probably stick to isotonic crystalloids, and some hypertonics.

 

Love to hear some thoughts!

Cheers

 

Philippe

 

 

August 3, 2016

The NYC Tracks with Jon-Emile: The Glycocalyx – The Next Frontier. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

I was really psyched when Jon-Emile mentioned he would like to talk about the glycocalyx.  I first blogged about it here, basically when I stumbled on the extensive literature on this huge organ we have been completely ignoring in terms of physiology and therapeutics. It lines our entire endothelium, which is where most of our therapeutic interventions go, and we only heard of it in passing, possibly in histology class as med 1’s.   Hmmm.  Anyhow, here, Jon-Emile and I talk about it a little, discuss possible clinical implications, but more importantly Jon mentions the relatively new blog of Dr. Thomas Woodcock (@thomaswoodcock), http://www.fluidtherapy.org, who is one of the pioneer clinicians who have studied the glycocalyx, and who is now trying to bridge the bench to the bedside.

I’ve been fortunate enough to get in touch with him and we’re planning to record some discussions soon.

So, in my view, the glycocalyx is a formidable force we have been ignoring, and have been damaging often with our interventions. I’m hoping to see some developments allowing glycocalyx assessment outside of the labs in order to give us the tools to reassess every fluid in terms of the relative damage it does to what is essentially the gatekeeper between the blood and the tissues.

Love to hear some comments!

Here is the chat with Jon:

 

cheers

 

Philippe

May 31, 2016

Fluids in Sepsis: An EmCrit Webinar! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 2.00.28 PM

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 1.43.23 PM

So a few weeks ago Scott (@EmCrit) asked me to be part of a pretty cool webinar organized by the Greater New York Hospital Association about fluids in sepsis. The gang consisted of David Gaiesky, Emmanuel Rivers and moderated by Scott himself. And for some obscure reason, he asked me to be part of it – much to my honour (terror, also), naturally.  It was only afterwards that he told me it was to help stir the pot and be controversial, challenge the “old school” etc… He seemed to have overlooked that I am Canadian, and inherently and perhaps overly polite and considerate – at least live and in “person”!

We talk about a bunch of stuff around fluids, which, how much, how to assess, etc.

Anyhow, I hope I got a few ideas across, but it was really cool to hear that these gurus do use ultrasound – don’t necessarily strictly adhere to, for instance, EGDT, and also advocate that guidelines are guidelines and not necessarily gold standards.

Here is the link to the webinar for those interested:

 

https://t.co/dbL03Vuqlj

 

And here is the figure for the section where I refer to fluid responsiveness/tolerance:

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 9.25.50 AM

I further talk about this in a previous post here.

Scott and I also recorded a debrief which should be coming up in the next weeks on EmCrit – link to follow!

cheers!

 

Philippe

March 19, 2016

Cerebral & Somatic NIRS (Near InfraRed Spectroscopy) in shock states: tailoring therapy. (PART 1) #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So I’d mentioned using NIRS to monitor and tailor therapy a few months ago, and promised a more in-depth discussion to come, so here we go.

For this not familiar with the technology or the concept, NIRS measures tissue saturation, predominantly venous. Hence physiologically it is akin to central/mixed venous gases, but localized. Cerebral NIRS found its foothold in the OR with carotid and cardiac surgery, but its use is now expanding. Given typical knowledge translation time of a decade, it should end up joining ETCO2 as a routine vital in monitored units, but probably not soon enough.

So in our unit at Santa Cabrini Hospital in Montreal, we’ve had this technology for about a year (the INVOS system), and have been studying its uses. In this time, three applications have stood out:

  1. Finding the “Sweet Spot” for vasopressors.
  2. Confirmation that therapeutic interventions are hemodynamically appropriate.
  3. Cardiac arrest: CPR adequacy, prognostication and detecting ROSC.

 

  1. Finding the “Sweet Spot” – I think (hope) that anyone reading this with professional interest understands that pressure does not necessarily equal perfusion.  With that in mind, adjusting vasopressors to a pressure makes little sense, and represents at best a guesstimate of perfusion, which is what we really are after. We can all agree, however, that a certain minimum pressure is required, but whether that is 65, 55 or 45 MAP no one can say for sure.  So the way I like to use it is to establish a baseline and watch the direction of the tissue saturation with vasopressor therapy. If the saturation begins to drop off, we may have reached a point at which excessive vasoconstriction is worsening tissue perfusion, and that inflexion point may represent the upper beneficial limit of the vasopressor – this may happen to be under 60 or 65 of MAP.  However, it is key to understand that this inflexion point is reflective of the current state of hemodynamics, such that a change in volume status or cardiac output, in one direction or the other, would likely change the position of this physiological point.  For example,  a volume depleted patient may reach a decreasing tissue saturation point at 55 MAP, but, once volume replete, may reach a higher MAP of 65 or above before a drop in saturation is seen.  Conversely, a patient whose best tissue saturations were around 65 MAP who suffers an MI and sudden drop in cardiac output may now see his perfusion compromised at that same MAP, which would now be achieved with a greater vasoconstriction, less cardiac output and consequently, poorer flow… I posted a case discussion which illustrates this.
  2. Confirmation that therapeutic interventions are hemodynamically appropriate – I feel this is really important. When a patient’s life is literally on the line, and knowing that our interventions are seldom without potential nefarious side effects, it is poor medicine to be introducing a therapy without having some form of monitoring – preferably multiple – that we are headed in the right direction, or at least not making things worse. Of course, we already do this – with BP, sat, lactate, CCO, ultrasound, ETCO2 – but I think using a realtime measure of tissue saturation adds to this. It is also my firm opinion that integrated, multimodality monitoring is necessary – at least until someone develops some form of mitochondrial monitoring which tells us that the cytoenergetics are sufficient to survive. Until then we are stuck with surrogate markers and many of them (e.g. lactate) are the result of complex processes that preclude them being a simple indicator of perfusion adequacy. For instance, when giving a fluid bolus/infusion – after having determined that the patient is likely fluid responsive AND tolerant – one should expect to see an increase in ETCO2 (other parameters being constant), an increase in CO, an increase in NIRS values. The absence of such response should make one reconsider the intervention, because without benefit, we are left only with side effects.

Here is a patient’s cerebral (top) and and somatic (thigh – bottom) and CO values. This patient had an RV infarct and was in shock.

IMG_7948IMG_7946

 

Following initiation of dobutamine, this is what occurred:

IMG_7951IMG_7949

Given that we cannot always predict the response to an inotrope – depending on the amount of recruitable myocardium, it is reassuring to see an improving trend. This enabled us to decrease the vasopressor dose significantly.

Note that, so far, and unless some good evidence comes out, I don’t use a goal value, and so far, I have not identified a value that is predictive of prognosis. However, downward trends usually bode very poorly. For instance, I had a severe chronic cardiomyopathy patient whose cerebral saturation was 15%!!!  But more surprisingly, she was awake, alert and hemodynamically stable. Adaptation.

Part 2 and the stuff on cardiac arrest coming soon!

Please, anyone using NIRS in shock, share your experience!

 

cheers

 

Philippe

February 21, 2016

Volume responsiveness and volume tolerance: a conceptual diagram. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So I know I’ve belaboured the point about the difference between volume responsiveness (i.e. will there be significant increase in cardiac output with volume infusion) and volume tolerance (is the volume I am considering giving going to have nefarious consequences), because in my opinion, the focus has been – rightly so to some degree – to look for an accurate way of discerning responsive patients from non. Of course this is absolutely necessary, as one does not want to give volume if it will not have any benefit, but the too-common corollary to that is to automatically give volume to those who are responsive.  Here is an earlier post about this:

Fluid Responsiveness: Getting the right answer to the wrong question. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So in discussing with a bright young colleague yesterday, Dr. St-Arnaud (@phil_star_sail), I realized that there may be a common conception that physiologically, the relationship between the two may be the following:

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 9.03.01 AM

This would mean that it is safe to give volume until a patient is no longer volume responsive, and even perhaps a bit more. Alternately, the two may be closer:

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 9.02.27 AM

This would mean that once can go just till the point where the patient is no longer volume responsive.

Either one of these scenarios would be awesome. That would mean that by using any of the flow or volume variation techniques, arterial or venous, we could pretty much remain safe.

However…

While the above may hold true for healthy subjects, I would contend that in sick people (which is who I tend to deal with, especially when resuscitating shock), that the more likely physiological relationship is the following:

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 9.03.28 AM

Hmmm… That would mean that assessing for volume responsiveness would only tell you that there would be an increase in cardiac output, but absolutely nothing about whether it would be safe to do so.

This concept is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. It’s inferred in the diagnosis of “non-cardiogenic pulmonary oedema.” So what causes this shift? Here:

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 9.25.50 AM

So, how do we figure out where the point is? Sorry to say there is no answer that I know of. My friend Daniel Lichtenstein uses the FALLS Protocol (identifying the appearance of B lines during resuscitation) which is the least we should do, but I suspect that at that point, we have already overshot the mark. My adopted mentor Dr. Andre Denault (@Ad12andre, in addition to IVC, has identified portal vein characteristics including pulsatility (lots of stuff in press) to show that the viscera are at risk, but as of yet there is no simple answer. CVP value? Please. CVP tracing morphology? Maybe.

No simple answer. No one-size-fits-all velue to look for. Clinical integration.

In my opinion, one should not, in sick patients, seek to volume resuscitate until the point of no-volume-responsiveness. The old adage of “you have to swell to get well” likely kills a few additional patients along the way, just as much as under-resuscitation. I plead guilty for over-resuscitating patients for years before realizing that being on the flat part of Frank-Starling is 100% a pathological state.

Love to hear your ideas and comments!

 

Jon-Emile Kenny says:

I like your graphics, it makes the concepts tangible. I think we should try to integrate ‘volume status’ into this framework as well. A physiological purist might say that as soon as you are ‘hypervolemic’, you are volume intolerant, because hypervolemia is an abnormal state which should always be avoided. A functionalist might say that you become volume intolerant as soon as you have physiological embarrassment of any organ system – but how is this determined? My gut is that by the time there are B-lines in the lung, you’ve gone too far. By the time there is abnormality of splanchnic venous return, you’ve already gone too far. I am more of a purist, so in my perfect ICU, I would perform q4-6 hour radio-labeled albumin studies to determine the patient’s true plasma volume. In health, the normal blood volume is about 80 mL/kg [thus, once you’ve given a 70kg man 5 L of NS, you’ve almost certainly replenished his vascular volume]. The moment that the blood volume becomes > 95% the norm, I would call the patient volume intolerant and stop volume expansion and focus on venous tone with pressors, cardiac function with inotropes, etc. To me, this makes the most sense in the pure Guytonian world; if you keep flogging a patient with litre after litre of fluid and the patient’s BP remains low, you are missing something – volume is not the answer – regardless of what an ultrasound shows you:
1. trouble shoot the venous return curve [i.e. too little blood volume, too little venous tone, too high resistance to venous return]
2. trouble shoot the cardiac function [i.e. poor rate, rhythm, contractility, valve function, biventricular afterload]
If you need some objective measure of blood volume before you can call volume status optimized before moving onto the next problem to fix – that’s a radio-labeled albumin.
Maybe I’m crazy.cheers

Jon

Thanks for commenting Jon!

I totally agree, if we knew each patient’s normal blood volume, that would be a starting point.  And of course, that would prevent the over resuscitation of a very dilated and compliant venous system (small IVC on ultrasound). Let us know if you figure out a practical way to do that!

It’s too bad that extravascular lung water doesn’t seem to have panned out – not sure why exactly.

 

 

Philippe

March 24, 2015

Physician, know thy fluids! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMer

So I posted a quick poll on http://www.therounds.com, a really upcoming physician site, with the intent of getting an idea of what people use as fluids and what they know about them.

 

The first question was “What is your fluid of choice for resuscitation?”

Screen Shot 2015-03-24 at 10.58.56 AM

…no big surprise, 61% choose NS.  Despite the evidence of increased renal dysfunction (JAMA 2012 – I posted about this here: https://thinkingcriticalcare.com/2013/11/18/enough-with-the-normal-saline-foamed-foamcc/)

Well, at least this is chosen with good knowledge of its pharmacological properties, right?

Screen Shot 2015-03-24 at 10.59.12 AM

Hmmm… 57% peg it as physiological or basic.  Only 9% get it right. The pH is 5.6 or so.

So here we have favorite medication used by a lot of people, who use a lot of it, usually in quite ill patients, often acidotic, and who are not aware that the pH is in fact also quite acidotic.

I think it just is an important example on how we need to treat fluids as medications, and not think of them as benign interventions, and by doing so, we’d feel much more obliged to look at what we are giving in terms of composition and quantity, rather than the debonair attitude we have mostly grown up with.

 

cheers!

 

Philippe

 

 

March 21, 2015

Enteral Fluid Resuscitation (EFR): Third-world medicine in the modern ED/ICU? (ORT part 2) – #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMer

Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 7.15.16 PM Enteral Fluid Resuscitation in the ER/ICU? For those who did’t come across it, part 1 of this series can be found here: http://wp.me/p1avUV-e8 So back to bringing the basics back to our ultra-tech world… Can I actually use this field technique in my bright and shiny ICU? Can I use oral hydration as a cutting edge therapy in my life-and-death patients? Sounds strange. Sounds like I should be using a precise device which lets me know exactly how much fluid has gone into my vascular space, because that’s where I want it to go, and I want to control exactly the composition of my serum electrolytes, etc, etc.  We like to control. But do we really? We actually have absolutely no idea how much of a fluid bolus remains intravascularly, in any one patient.  It will depend on his/her pre-existing venous filling, his serum protein levels, the integrity of the glycocalyx, and probably a few more things we don’t even know yet.  And as I rapidly distend atria, I release ANP which damages my glycocalyx further. Hmmm… As I mentioned in the last post, the only way fluid enters our vascular space is via the endothelial cells at the level of the GI tract for the most part. All “venous access” is iatrogenic. I do believe that the endothelial cells, by and large, will do a better job – in concert with the kidneys and rest of the blood cells – of controlling the plasma than we will, if given the chance. What logically follows is that, in the presence of a functional gut, I can consider using Enteral Fluid Resuscitation – that is, giving fluid for hemodynamic purposes, not just “maintenance,” by an enteral tube of some sort. So what could I give?   What’s in it? The current reduced osmolarity WHO/UNICEF formula contains approximately the following: Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 7.24.28 PM So, lets take a closer look at the players: 75 mmol/l of sodium, 75 mmol/l glucose, some potassium and the rest basically to balance the electroneutrality. The whole thing hinges on the glucose-sodium cotransporter, which drags sodium and water in along with the “desired” glucose.  Optimal water absorption takes place with Na between 40-90 mmol/l, glucose 110-140 mmol/l, and an osmolality around 290.  A higher Na may cause some hypernatremia, and a higher osmolality may result in water loss. Here is our friend the enterocyte illustrating just how this kind of solution will allow sodium absorption: Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 7.31.54 PM   Do-it-Yourself Enteral Fluid Resuscitation Solution: So I’ve got a neat DIY option if I don’t want to break out the powder and start mixing in the middle of my unit: 0.45% or 1/2 NS plus 30 ml of of D50 would give us Na 77, Cl 77 and glucose 74, with an osmolality of 228. Pretty close. That’s what I’ve been using. How much? Well, I like the slow and gradual. Some of the rehydration data out there supports some pretty huge amount of fluids, but this has been done mostly in healthy but dehydrated athletes – not the case for most of our patients. I’ve been going with 250ml every 1-2h, as – for now – an adjunct to IV fluid therapy. This is conservative and completely arbitrary, but essentially a glass every hour or two certainly doesn’t seem excessively taxing. Who can I give this to? You do need a functional gut, so for now, my criteria are (1) essentially normal abdominal exam, (2) obviously no recent bowel surgery, (3) a patent and functional gut as far as I know, (4) no ultrasound evidence of ileus or gastric distension. But how can I be sure it’s going in the right place?  I can’t. Just like I can’t be sure my IV fluids are staying in the right place. But I do check – IVC ultrasound (gross but better than skin turgor!), urine output, HR, BP, etc. None of those are perfect as they are all multifactorial, but that is the nature of the game. The other thing I check is gastric distension by bedside ultrasound every couple of hours – obviously, if I’m just getting a fluid filled stomach, there’s no point, and eventually harm may ensue. When should I stop? Whenever you clinically decide you don’t need/want any further fluid resuscitation. As far as I am concerned, might as well stop the IV infusions first and have the enteral going after – in the end, you are hoping your patient will go back to drinking and not require a PICC line for discharge, aren’t you?  So you stop when the patient does it on his or her own. I’d really like to know if anyone out there is doing something like this. It would be great to compare notes and evolution. Drop a line!   cheers, Philippe

March 15, 2015

Musings with Jon-Emile & Philippe – Fluid Resuscitation: Physiology and Philosophy! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMer

So here, Jon-Emile and I explore a topic I’ve posted about before (http://wp.me/p1avUV-bd) so I can see if a master physiologist agrees with my rationale (…not just my rationale but supported by a ton of literature many choose to overlook!).

Please visit http://www.heart-lung.org for Jon’s awesome physiology tutorials!

Love to hear listeners’ thoughts!

cheers

 

Philippe