resuscitation

February 9, 2015

Enteral Fluid Resuscitation? The WHO to the rescue in the ED/ICU? (ORT part 1) #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMer

So something has been trotting around my head for a few months, and it actually stems from a small and not-so-proud moment I experienced during a conversation with my wife, while she was still a resident.

She was telling me some of the stories of the day, and how one of her supervisors who had a mixed outpatient and ED practice, always pushed them to use PO fluids, get rid of IVs and get the patients home.  I kind of scoffed, in a sadly typical acute care physician mode, saying how you had to be a bit more aggressive and give them IV fluids to revert their dehydration a bit faster.

Then I caught myself. Hmmm. What exactly am I saying this (con brio) on the basis of. Knowledge, or belief?    I tried to find knowledge but came up woefully short. It seems I’m doing this out of habit, what I’ve seen/learned/believed in the two decades since someone handed me an MD degree. Damn.

So, I do believe in evolution. We have evolved platelets to stop bleeding, fibroblasts and osteoblasts that can fix bones, white cells that go mop up the messes, and all kinds of other good stuff.  One thing we do NOT have is small openings in vascular structures that allow unprocessed, man-made fluids directly into the bloodstream. We make these. We insert tubing into normally sterile environment and infuse a vast number of medications directly into this fragile matrix of cells and organic colloid – with the best of intentions.

In our physiology, however, the ONLY way fluid ever enters the vascular spaces is by diffusion from the outside of the endothelial cell into the lumen, molecule by molecule and ion by ion.

So let me seemingly diverge for a bit…

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 12.05.58 PM

Prior to the 1970’s, restricting oral intake was a “cornerstone” therapy of diarrheal illness, due to the pervasive belief that the GI tract needed time to heal and recover before resuming normal function. This was felt to be crucial. Hence, only IV therapy was used (in developed countries), and in the underdeveloped world, the death toll was appalling – especially among children.   In the 40’s, Dr. Darrow of Yale started actually studying the GI tract fluid and electrolyte issue, and advocating oral rehydration with mixed fluids. He was able to bring infant mortality radically down in his practice, but it would take over twenty years before a groups started to formally look at this in the 60’s.  Finally, in the late 70’s, the WHO pushed this out into the field, and the childhood worldwide mortality from acute diarrheal illness dropped by over 70%, from over 5 million deaths a year to a bit over 1 million – at that time.

Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is now felt to be one of the most significant advances in modern medicine. Compared to that impact, all the critical care and cardiology trials are about as significant as a drop in a bucket. We’re not talking about composite end points and subgroup odds ratios of 0.85…

For a great review on this check out The History of Oral Rehydration Therapy by Joshua Nalibow Ruxin (google it).  A great story of science and humanity, good and bad.

So, back to 2015 ED/ICU’s.

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 12.06.26 PM

The question now becomes the following: why – in the presence of a functional gut – do I choose to entirely rely on non-physiological IV fluid resuscitation?

I can already hear the roars and the outrage and the cries of heresy.  And heresy is certainly what this is (Heresy is any provocative belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs – Wikipedia). But that doesn’t make it wrong.

So I would ask everyone – particularly the naysayers, to examine their knowledge and see if they actually have any at all that supports the strong conviction that IV fluids are the way to go in ALL cases (my N=1  principle precludes going for the one-size-fits-all therapeutic approach).

Now everyone agrees that, once patients are better, they should be on feeds with little maintenance fluids. I don’t think many will debate that. So that should be the basis to wonder whether, in the presence of a functional gut, a variable proportion of fluid resuscitation in acute illness should be enteral…

I’ll let everyone digest that.

Comments more than welcome.

More to come in Part 2.

 

 

cheers!

Philippe

December 6, 2014

A Witnessed Arrest: Advanced Bedside Ultrasound. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So I was taking over the ICU in the evening, and as I walked in I hear that an arrest had happened and she was now being wheeled out of the ICU to radiology for a CT head and CT angio. So I didn’t get to do a bedside exam.

The story was that an 84 year old woman who had been admitted for atrial arrhythmia had been noted to have different blood pressure in the upper extremities, and the concerned family had urged to hospitalist to seek additional opinions. At the very moment when she was being examined by but the daytime ICU doc and a cardiologist, she suddenly deteriorated. They were actually in the process of bedside ultrasound, which had been normal aside from a small pericardial effusion, when she became unresponsive, seemed to have some lateralizing signs, became bradycardia and arrested. They got ROSC with an epic within a couple of minutes.

The feeling was that, having been started on one of those NOACs (Eliquis), she had bled and arrested by neurocardiac axis. Definitely reasonable, but given the BP discrepancy, ruling out aortic dissection was also a must.

So here is the scan:

A quick glance reveals an ascending aortic aneurysm with what appears to be a dissection and a visible flap. The CT of the head was normal.  A closer look seems to reveal that the dissection extends into the brachiocephalic trunk.  My colleague discussed with the radiologist who repeatedly told him it was a type A but wouldn’t say anything more (don’t ask…). Just as a reminder, here is the current classification:

aortic dissection class

So in discussion with the family, there was obviously concern about the possible stroke (an early normal CT obviously does not rule out an ischemic infarct) and given that a palpable pulse does not exclude dissection, bedside ultrasound was the next step (also because the radiologist had not clearly pronounced himself on the scan – in all fairness he may have just done a preliminary reading – so here is what we see, with the carotid being in the lower right area of the flow box, and part of the jugular in the left upper.

As a comparison, here is the left side (normal – but inverted – jugular rt and carotid lt).

Clearly, most of the right carotid lumen is actually false lumen of the dissection, with only a small crescentic lumen between 3 and 6 o’clock. Not good.

Here are the basic cardiac views:

subxiphoid

parasternal long axis

 

We can see a small pericardial effusion which looks textured – likely blood, and essentially normal function.  Now here is a right-sided parasternal view, showing the dissected aneurysm, including the dissected intimal flap:

Now this isn’t a routine view, and honestly I did it after having seen the scan where one can see that the aneurysm abuts the chest wall, which would make it ultrasoundable, and i can’t really say I would have done it without that knowledge. But now I would, if a similar case would present itself. Very insensitive but quite specific.

So I thought this was an interesting case to show, as a rapidly developing clinical picture, and from the point of view of bedside ultrasound, it displays the usefulness of carotid imaging and alternate views – and how simple it is to do.  Unfortunately at her age and given state she was not deemed a surgical candidate and passed away the next day.

 

thanks for reading!

…to sharpen up your resuscitation and ultrasound skills, don’t forget to come to CCUS 2015, may 1-3 in Montreal, Canada!  Register at http://www.ccusinstitute.org and for more details,http://wp.me/p1avUV-aU

 

Philippe

November 29, 2014

Venous Hypertension: The Under-Appreciated Enemy Part 2: Discussion with Jon-Emile

So I posted about this a few weeks ago, and the discussion it brought up with Jon-Emile (www.heart-lung.org) turned out to be way better than the original post, and I just wanted to make sure everyone interested got to see it, so here we go (part 1 is here, for those who didn’t come across it: http://wp.me/p1avUV-bJ):

Jon-Emile

 

Jon-Emile: This is a great topic for review Philippe!

I have come across this problem, certainly on more than one occasion. I was first introduced to the idea of renal venous pressure and renal hemodynamics as a house-officer at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Dr. Jerome Lowenstein published work on this phenomenon as it pertained to ‘Minimal Change Syndrome.” He used to ‘wedge’ the renal vein and measure renal interstitial pressure in these patients and measured the response to diuresis. It was very enlightening and made me feel more comfortable given more diuretics in such patients. [Am J Med. 1981 Feb;70(2):227-33. Renal failure in minimal change nephrotic syndrome].

I am also glad that you bring up the cranial vault in this discussion, because I have often wondered if the encapsulated kidneys behave in a similar way. That is, as renal interstitial volume increases from edema, if there is some point on their compliance curve [like the cranium] where there is a very marked increase in renal interstitial pressure? I have found a few articles which loosely address this idea, but would be interested if anyone else knew of some. In such a situation, there would be a ‘vascular waterfall’ effect within the kidneys whereby the interstitial pressure supersedes the renal venous pressure [like West Zone II in the lungs]; then, renal blood flow would be driven by a gradient between MAP and renal interstitial pressure [not renal venous pressure]. I know of one paper that addresses this physiology in dogs, and finds the vascular ‘choke point’ to be in the renal venous system and not Bowman’s space.

What’s even more interesting, is that when renal interstitial pressure is elevated is that the kidney behaves in a sodium avid state [i.e. urine electrolytes will appear ‘pre-renal’] and this physiology has been known for at least a century!

Lancet. 1988 May 7;1(8593):1033-5. Raised venous pressure: a direct cause of renal sodium retention in oedema?

There is no good explanation as to why this occurs, but one I read is that the high renal interstitial pressure tends to collapse the afferent arteriole and the decrease in afferent arteriole trans-mural pressure which facilitates renin secretion [just like low blood pressure would]; but that would require a fairly high renal interstitial pressure unless the MAP was concomitantly low.

Again, what I must caution [and I’ve been personally wrong about this] is the reflex to give diuretics when seeing a ‘plump IVC’. When I was treating a woman with mild collagen-vascular-related pulmonary arterial hypertension, community-acquired pneumonia with a parapneumonic effusion and new acute renal failure, I assessed her IVC with ultrasound. It was plump an unvarying. I lobbied the nephrologist to try diruesis based on the aforementioned reasoning, but was very wrong. Her kidneys took a hit with lasix. What got her kidneys better was rehydration. In the end, what happened was her mild PAH raised her venous pressure and the hypoxemic vaso-constrction from her new pnuemonia only made that worse. Her right heart pressures, venous pressure and probably renal venous pressure were undoubtedly high. But I didn’t take into consideration her whole picture. She had a bad infection, had large insensible losses and had not been eating and drinking. She was hypovolemic, no doubt, despite her high right heart pressures. Fortunately, her pneumonia resolved and fluids brought her kidneys back to baseline.

Thanks again for another thought-provoking topic

 

Me: Great points as usual Jon, and your last one brings up a bit of a concern I have always had. To play devil’s advocate, one could argue that it may have been resolution of the pneumonia and its metabolic sequelae and possibly other treatment that resulted in improvement of her renal failure, rather than the fluid, no? Did her hypoxia resolution decrease PAP back to normal – with IVC dynamics restoring – and relief of renal congestion, and improvement “despite” fluid?

To me, fluid administration must – at least transiently – increase CO to have any effect on the perfusion side. To do so, my understanding is that it has to go from right to left. Because of the pericardium and interdependence, if RAP exceeds LVEDP, we will start to impair LV preload, which sets up the vicious cycle of a shrinking LV and growing RV. If we can’s increase our RT heart output, obviously our LV CO headed to the kidneys can’t increase either. Hence the assumption would have to be that somehow this additional fluid can – by increasing RV preload (without increasing RV size and further impinging LV?) – help overcome elevated PAP and increase right to left flow. To me, hard to believe without a pericardiectomy (on a short time frame, naturally). Hence I struggle with understanding how a really plump IVC with little variation (if significant pleural pressure variation is occurring) can really still need fluid.

I’d really, really like to get your comments on this. I’ve had a number of conversations about this with people – some of them pretty bright – but none satisfying. Am hoping you can point out my flawed thinking.

 

Jon-Emile: Philippe, you ask very good questions. Your first point is quite valid. I think we have a bias of assigning meaning to a particular intervention because we think that particular intervention will work. For the patient I treated, we administered multiple drugs [oxygen, antibiotics, bronchodilators, we may have even given a dose of steroids] and yet I assign meaning to the fluids given. I think in all patients with complex hemodynamics that there are multiple co-varying interventions that all [hopefully] push the patient in the right direction – making it quite hard to grant significance to one in particular. Yet in the patient I treated, the timing with respect to creatinine change and urine output made it very hard to argue in favor of diuresis. We were checking her creatinine fairly regularly as she was in step-down and we were concerned about the trajectory of her illness. With lasix, her creatinine jumped abruptly on the following chemistry while with fluids, creatinine dropped and her urine output really picked up.

Which brings me to Ulrich’s point. It is well-taken and I hope to have a pulmccm post on this shortly. While the CVP does not have any correlation with volume status or volume responsiveness as you point out, the physiology of the CVP can help explain confusing echocardiographic findings.

All a plump, unvarying IVC with spontaneous inspiration means [if you believe the Guyton, or Magder approach] is that the IVC transmural pressure is remaining on the flat portion of its compliance curve during inspiration.

Click to access cc11824.pdf

In other words, the IVC is at such high volume [on the flat portion] that lowering its transmural pressure [lowering the CVP, raising the intra-abdominal pressure or both] does not cause it to shrink in volume.

The question then becomes why is the IVC in this state? And a great analysis to this question is to consider the determinants of great vein volume [which really is a question of great vein/right atrial pressure or the CVP – which is related to volume by compliance].

There are two primary processes which will raise great vein volume and these flow from the Guyton Diagram 1. excessive venous return 2. poor cardiac function or a combination thereof [its really just inflow versus outflow]. Volume status plays one part of venous return, so certainly, if someone is hugely fluid overloaded, their venous return will be enhanced and this will favour a high great vein volume and high great vein pressure, BUT this will be mediated by cardiac function because if the heart can eject the large venous return it is receiving, then the great vein pressure and volume won’t change or may be low. Conversely, if cardiac function is poor, a patient could have a low venous return [e.g. be hypovolemic or euvolemic] and still have a high great vein volume and pressure – simply, because the heart can’t expel from the thorax what little venous return it receives. Importantly, poor cardiac function can mean almost anything [valve dysfunction, tachycardia with arrhythmia, high afterload, poor contractility, etc.].

To me, the above is the true value of thinking about Guyton and the CVP, so when I approach a patient, I try to think about what their venous return curve looks like [by a clinical exam] and I use a TTE to actually see what their heart function looks like [and to me this is the true power of ICU TTE]. The above also explains why CVP simply cannot be a marker of volume status.

In the patient I was treating, her history and physical really suggested poor venous return [she was clearly with a pneumonia, hadn’t been eating and was euvolemic to dry on examination] yet her great vein volume was high on TTE which meant that her cardiac function was most likely poor [on the Guyton Diagram her low venous return curve would be intersecting a very low, flattened cardiac function curve such that shifts with intra-thoracic pressure would not change right heart pressure at all].

But why was her heart function poor? Why could her right heart not eject what little inflow it was receiving? It was probably a combination of things. The pneumonia probably increased right heart afterload which caused some TR, she was tachycardic so wasn’t getting optimal filling time, she was septic with perhaps some underlying cardiomyopathy, perhaps her diastolic blood pressure was lower than normal [she was an elderly lady with likely stiff arteries] and she wasn’t perfusing her right coronary artery well and was suffering from relative ishcemia] it’s certainly is a lot of hand-waving, but all taken together perhaps plausible.

The antibiotics improved her lung function as did the bronchodilators which lowered pulmonary vascular resistance which improved right heart forward flow, maybe the inhaled beta-agonists increased her contractility, maybe the oxygen also lowered her pulmonary vascular resistance, maybe the steroids sensitized her to catechols and this raised her blood pressure and coronary perfusion pressure which improved her right heart function, but also maybe the fluids? Empirically, and in retrospect, venodilating her with lasix probably really lowered her venous return and this crashed what little cardiac reserve she had. It was improving her venous return with fluids that helped.

Sorry if this post is getting too long …

In terms of ventricular interdependence [an excellent, under-appreciated point in the ICU] I think that you have to be very careful extrapolating whether or not this effect is present from an IVC examination. In a classic paper [that caused much consternation at the time] Pinsky found that right atrial pressure was completely uncoupled from right ventricular end-diastolic volume [why the CVP is a poor indicator of volume responsiveness]. Her is a recent review of that paper by Pinsky himself.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24760121

The take home is that while right atrial volume and pressure [and by corollary great vein volume and pressure] can be high, this may not translate to a right ventricle near its elastic limit. Pinsky offers no good explanation as to why this is, but postulates that it may have to do with the complex RV geometry and how this changes during diastole. So until there is a widely accepted means of assessing RV filling with TTE [like an Ea ratio] which could pick up a restricted filling pattern, this is really hard to call on echo. As you are aware, you could look for a flattened septum or D sign during diastole, but I’m not sure how well that sign predicts a patient’s response to a fluid challenge – it certainly screams caution.

This Pinsky paper also highlights a potential disconnect between the physiology proximal to the tricuspid valve and the physiology below it which is also part of my general reluctance to use IVC volume change as a marker of fluid responsiveness, just as I have total reluctance to use CVP [or its change with respiration] as a marker of fluid responsiveness.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time it comes down to ‘guess and check’ – give fluids or give lasix and see what happens. This is why I firmly believe that determining volume status and volume responsiveness are the hands-down hardest party of ICU medicine.

If you’re still reading, I hope this helps.

One more point. I don’t think I gave a full explanation to one of your questions. Please bear with me as this is exceptionally hard to explain with words [indeed why I made heart-lung.org].

The venous return and cardiac function curves are essentially inverse of each other [that is lowering right atrial pressure increases venous inflow but decreases cardiac outflow] so they approximate the letter X [venous return is the \ and cardiac function is the / & the point at which the two lines intersect make up the CVP and defines cardiac output].

If you consider the patient I described, If we assume her venous return is low [because she is venodilated from sepsis and hypovolemic from low PO] then the venous return curve [\] is shifted leftwards. If we assume her cardiac function is poor the cardiac function curve slope [/] is shifted down and to the right.

When she takes a breath in, the lowering of intrathoracic pressure pulls the cardiac function curve leftwards [lowers its pressure relative to venous return] while the increase in in abdominal pressure with diaphragm decent tends to temporarily increase venous return by decreasing abdominal venous capacitance. This effect shifts the venous return curve in a rightward manner.

If the patient’s venous return curve initially intersects the ascending portion of the cardiac function curve [i.e. she is truly volume responsive] BUT, the intersection is very near the plateau of the cardiac function curve [i.e. the portion of the cardiac function curve that will render the patient non-volume responsive and also favour unvarying respiratory change in right atrial pressure/volume with inspiration], THEN with inspiration it is possible to see the intersection of the two curves on the flat portion of the cardiac function curve [as the cardiac function curve is pulled leftwards and the venous return curve is pushed rightwards], even though she does have some cardiac preload reserve. This would be an example of impaired specificity of IVC volume change with spontaneous inspiratory effort as a predictor of volume unresponsiveness [i.e. a false positive for a plump IVC predicting the lack of fluid responsiveness].

I address this physiology in chapter 6 parts C and D and chapter 8 part F.

 

Me: Very, very interesting. I think this discussion, as many, show how medicine is not a “hard science” but remains a “pseudo-science”, inherent to the fact that we are blending physics, chemistry, biology and cannot really apply simple principles of flow and pressures when dealing with elastic, muscular systems lined with microscopic coating whose compliance and resistance change from moment to moment and thru effect of neural and hormonal influence. There are simply too many unmeasurable variables to come up with single guidelines and rules.

I think, as you say, that there remains a need for some degree of trial and error, that we are hopefully narrowing with the appropriate application of technology and proper data integration.

I’ll percolate all this and see how I can tweak my mental model!

Thanks a lot Jon-Emile!

Philippe

 

 

please visit Jon-Emile at http://www.heart-lung.org

Heart-Lung

 

 

cheers!

…and don’t forget to register for CCUS 2015 at http://www.ccusinstitute.org!!!

Philippe

November 26, 2014

The IVC: Short vs Long Axis…Be The Judge! #FOAMed, #FOAMus, #FOAMcc

So yesterday had a case that really brought out this issue. One of my ICU patients didn’t have a great urine output, so instead of playing a guessing game looking at urea, creatinine, ins & outs, etc, etc (hopefully no one is thinking CVP…), I did what any self-respecting bedside sonographer would and went for a direct look.

Here is what his IVC in standard long axis looked like:

So…it looks like its about 20mm, and not a whole lot of variation seen. Hmm, maybe he’s on the “fuller” side.  Some may even consider that he wouldn’t be volume-responsive.

Before we go on, lets just have a brief physiological review. What we are looking for when assessing IVC is an idea of its volumetric change with respiratory swings. So ideally we should be obtaining a 3D volume measurement, but maybe the traditional 2 point diameter may suffice, assuming that the IVC is a near perfect cylinder. Assuming?

I’ve mentioned this in a previous IVC post (http://wp.me/p1avUV-8E).

So let’s get back to yesterday’s patient. Short axis:

Yes, the IVC is that tall, skinny sliver that collapses completely with (gentle) inspiration. Still think that this patient is in the full side?  Maybe not. Gave him some fluid and the urine output picked up.

 

Bottom Line?

This is why I think much of the IVC literature is imperfect. Unfortunately the appealing idea of standardizing IVC assessment to a single two-point measurement is inherently flawed, due once again to individual patient variation. It would be great to see all those studies re-done with a global IVC assessment strategy. In the end, it isn’t any more time-consuming – just like the Simpson’s disks vs eyeballing.

Cheers!

Oh yeah, again, if you are an acute care doc, and you like the cutting edge, donate forget to register for CCUS 2015, Montreal, may 1-3!  www.ccusinstitute.org!

Philippe

November 22, 2014

A Bedside Ultrasound Case & Poll: All Infiltrates Are Not Created Equal. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So I get an early morning call from a really good ER guy informing me of a likely ICU admission: a young guy (30’s) with a bilateral pneumonia and fever whom he suspected might get worse before he got better. He’s given him some fluids and started ceftriaxone and azithromycin. Sounds good to me. Sold. I tell him I’ll come take a look as soon as I roll into work (we do home call).

An hour or so later I head to the ED and see a him, in bed at 30 degrees or so with nasal prongs, maybe a little tachypneic but certainly not in severe distress and not particularly toxic. The nurse informs me that his temperature was apparently 40 degrees. The CXR (I’ll try to put it up soon) shows bilateral infiltrates, more predominant in the lower two thirds of the lung fields. WBC is 14, lactate 2.3.

So this guy had been short of breath for about 2 weeks, having some cough and localized left sided pain associated with movement, cough and pressure. The cough was non-productive.  As I was getting this history (yup, generally bedside ultrasound is simultaneous with history-taking for me), this is what I see:

(parasternal long axis)

(parasternal short axis)

(right lower costal margin)

(you can see this in most of the lung fields)

He has no past medical history or notable family history, drinks occasional wine, has not traveled of late and works as an electrician. He is active and played soccer – the last time a few weeks ago. He came to the ED for dyspnea, but had still been able to go up several flights of stairs, albeit with more dyspnea than he normally would have.

 

 

 

check back tomorrow and let’s see what happens!

 

cheers!

 

Philippe

November 13, 2014

Bedside Ultrasound Case Debate Part 1: A Poll ! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

So I’m walking to the ED to reassess a COPD’er that was on BiPAP, and one of the ED docs sees me in passing and says – “I might have a case for you, she’s on her 3rd litre and still a bit hypotensive…I’ll let you know.”  So I re-route and decide to take a look right away, because I’m never fond of shock NYD.

So here is this woman in her 50’s, BP is 93/67, RR 22 and moderately dyspneic. She has been increasingly so for a few days without infectious symptoms. The X-ray is clear and her labs unremarkable aside from a lactate at 3.3 mmol/l.  She is moderately overweight but quite active. Non=smoker without any cardiorespiratory known illness and on no medications.

Here is what we see on ultrasound-enchanced physical examination:

So, what do you see?

In the first clip, we see a large, dilated IVC with little variation – despite the dyspnea, making it a more significant finding – according to the Effort-Variation Index (http://wp.me/p1avUV-9k).   This automatically implies there will be some pathology (unless iatrogenically very volume loaded) to be found downstream.

In the second clip, you have a hyperdynamic and underfilled LV and a dilated, poorly contractile RV.  In the absence of cardiopulmonary disease and in an active patient, this is highly suggestive of an acute process, namely pulmonary embolism.

On further questioning she had done a new yoga stretching class as a possible endothelial-damaging process.

So what did I do? Get a STAT angioscan:

 

What would you do next?

 

I’ll tell you what I did tomorrow, and hopefully have some good bloody arguments!

 

PS for awesome talks by amazing speakers, don’t forget to register for CCUS 2015!!! For more info: http://wp.me/p1avUV-aU and register at www.ccusinstitute.org!

 

cheers

 

Philippe

 

November 8, 2014

Limited EGDT in Zambia Study: Salt Water Drowning Syndrome… #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So in this month’s issue of Critical Care Medicine, an interesting article was published, where investigators took a (necessarily) simplified version of EGDT to Zambia and applied it to septic patients. It turned out they had to stop it early due to an excessive number of cases of respiratory failure in the treatment group.  The difference was – you guessed it – they got “aggressive” volume resuscitation – up to 4l in the first 6 hours – guided by JVP assessment, and blood and dopamine if needed.

Simplified_Severe_Sepsis_Protocol___A_Randomized.1

The amounts received by 6, 24 and 72h were 2.9, 3.9 and 5.6 l for the treatment group vs 1.6, 3.0 and 4.3 l.

Now lets keep in mind that the patients, for the most part, did not have access to critical care, so the limited resources for ventilatory support made stopping the trial a bit early the only reasonable thing to do. Mortality in the treatment group was 64% and control 60%. High numbers, but this is explained in part by the prevalence of HIV (80%) and TB (37% of the HIV positive patients), so this data can’t necessarily be extrapolated to all populations, but to me, this is physiological support for the concept that aggressive fluid resuscitation – as I have stated in prior posts/podcasts – is most dangerous in those patients where the septic source – presumably “leaky” is ill-equipped to handle extra-physiological fluid.  In these patients, as Myburgh states in a sepsis talk, “noradrenaline is the fluid of choice,” and although perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, this certainly speaks to my beliefs of resuscitating to euvolemia rather than to the lack of volume responsiveness (http://intensivecarenetwork.com/myburgh-john-beta-blockers-and-sepsis/).

Additionally, these patients were not hypotensive, and lactate was not available – local limitations of medical system. Hence the definition of severe sepsis triggering aggressive fluid resuscitation was based  on SIRS type criteria, rather than some form of volume assessment.

 

Bottom line?

Be cautious in aggressive fluid administration in pulmonary sepsis. What, I really dislike when people say “be careful” or “be cautious,” because let’s face it, that doesn’t really mean anything, does it?  It doesn’t tell you what to actually do… We are frontline clinicians, so I’ll say to limit fluid resuscitation in pulmonary sepsis.  2 litres up front?  Probably ok so long as I have a varying, mid-size IVC (maybe 10-15mm – arbitrary and chronic pulmonary disease and hypertension have to be factored in) and a decent heart, but I don’t want to get to the point of no longer being fluid-responsive. Rather, go to pressors a bit earlier, perhaps, and no need for ongoing “maintenance” fluids at 100-150 cc’s an hour – remember that 80% of this wonderful therapy ends up where we don’t want it to.

 

cheers!

 

Philippe

PS for awesome talks by amazing speakers, don’t forget to register for CCUS 2015!!! For more info: http://wp.me/p1avUV-aU and register at http://www.ccusinstitute.org! 

October 18, 2014

The ARISE Trial: Sealing the Deal. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So I’m putting this up cuz I had a few people ask me to, but in truth I don’t think I have anything really groundbreaking to say, nor do I feel the need to repeat what Scott (emcrit.org) and the Bottom Line crew (wessexics.com) have already broken down.

I would just caution the following, as I did a few months ago with PROGRESS, that not all usual care is of the same level (and I’m not talking about the community vs academic centre necessarily) and you all know your institutions, so its up to everyone to judge whether they are better off sticking to their current (likely EGDT-based) protocols or not.

Anyhow, here it is:

 

Don’t forget:  CCUS 2015 registration opens soon!

see http://www.ccusinstitute.org or http://wp.me/p1avUV-bh for more details, its gonna be awesome!

October 6, 2014

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

Let me start with a clinical scenario: you have a 68 year old male in front of you who is intubated, has bilateral pleural effusions, pulmonary edema, a bit of ascites, significant peripheral edema, elevated CVP/JVP/large IVC, and a moderately depressed cardiac function.  What is the diagnosis?

If you said CHF, you might be right. If you said post-resuscitation state in a septic patient, you might equally be right. Hmmm….

So as any self-respecting FOAMite knows, there is an ongoing and endless debate about fluid responsiveness, how best to detect it, what exact percentage of some variation represents it – is it 9% or 13% – and everyone has the way they swear by.

Well, I think the entire premise behind this is essentially flawed.

The fact that this is the first question implies that the answer should radically change management (eg giving or not giving fluids “generously” – yes, the quotes imply facetiousness).  Basically, that you should stop giving fluids when your patient is no longer fluid-responsive. The implication is that fluids is a better, safer, healthier, more naturopathic, eco-friendly and politically correct therapy than any other option.

I think we should reflect on that a little.

If you put some faith into normal physiology, you have to acknowledge that the only situations in which our cardiopulmonary system finds itself nearly or no longer fluid responsive are pathological: CHF, renal failure, etc. None of those are healthy. None of those are a bridge to healing.

What do we do when we are hypovolemic?  We vasoconstrict, stop peeing, try to drink a bit (if at all possible) and slowly replete our intravascular space via the portal system. We might build up a little lactic acid (helps feed the heart and brain – yup, nothing toxic about it), but we get over it.  Of course, if we lose too much, the system fails and we head to meet our maker.

Now, having remembered that, why do we feel (and I say feel because the evidence isn’t there to back it up) like we have to get to pathological levels of intravascular venous pressure to fix the problem?  Especially when the problem at hand isn’t primarily hypovolemia, but mostly vasodilation, with possibly a relative hypovolemia in part related to increased venous capacitance.

The real question is: does my patient really, truly need a lot of fluid?

And here is the catch: just because someone is fluid responsive doesn’t mean that they need any, or that it is the best thing for them. Whoa… Heretic… I thought “aggressive fluid resuscitation is the cornerstone of resuscitation in sepsis.”

I think that answer is relatively simple.

No matter which method you are using (mine is IVC ultrasound: -http://thinkingcriticalcare.com/2014/04/01/the-ivc-assessment-by-bedside-ultrasound-lets-apply-some-common-sense-foamed-foamcc/), if you are deciding based on a millimetre of diameter, or a couple of percentage points of variation whether or not to give liters of crystalloids to your patient, there is no truth to that in the individual patient. Trying to figure out the tiniest of differences to decide our therapeutic options is, in my opinion, a huge waste of time with no scientific basis in the one single patient you are treating.   It’s like haggling for a dollar on a hundred dollar item in a flea market: you’re missing the boat.

“85% of patients with a IVC/SVV/SPV/PLR of …. are volume responsive” or something of the sort does NOT apply to the one patient you have in front of you as a recommendation for fluids. You have to make a complete clinical picture of it – feel the belly, look at the inspiratory effort, examine the tissues for edema, etc.

Grey zone it. The best we can do is a gross categorization of truly hypovolemic (need a lot), full (please don’t give me any), and “normal” which may need maybe a little, but probably not “generous” amounts. You’ll end up generously feeding the interstitial space and making things worse – and later maybe saying “oh well, I guess he/she was just so sick…”

Even if my patient is fluid-tolerant, why to we want to push him into near-pathological states? Is it just the old adage of “You have to swell to get well?”  In the light of much of our literature, I’m not sure that old wives’ tale holds a lot of water.

Are vasopressors that bad?  Not according to what we know…

At least, avoid actually reaching the point of no longer being fluid responsive. You can’t tell me you think that CHF is actually a good thing, can you?

 

Love to hear your thoughts!

 

Philippe

PS, if you like to think out of the box and rather be on the cutting edge, make sure to mark your calendar for the coolest conference in Canada: #CCUS2015….http://wp.me/p1avUV-bh

 

 

COMMENTS

SQS Replies:

Philippe,
I think your logic is sound enough, but the moat that makes it currently unassailable is that you are working in an area with no or very little data. There is clearly a reasonably well developed and continuing to develop literature around the mortality effects of excess volume. There is an older literature that suggests that our vasopressors are actually having their effect on the more normally functioning arterioles and may shunt well oxygenated blood from the well functioning cells of a tissue and to the ones that are shocked and can’t use the oxygen, anyway. At this juncture, your guess is as good as mine, as to which of these is the greater evil. Ergo, your argument is as good as any.

One thing I will say is that the patients who concern us are those in whom endotoxin, blood loss, or other factors have resulted in a shock state wherein cells and even large parts of tissues have both inadequate oxygen supply and inadequate ability to use whatever oxygen is supplied them. Any tool we have to alter this pathological state is blunt. Blood pressure? CVP? IVC size and behavior? SVI? What do any of these say about how well we are doing at the tissue and cellular level? Even the interesting markers of lactate, ScvO2, CV CO2, etc. are blunt instruments. As is our bag of fluid and as are our vasopressors. And think about our end result – “hemodynamic stability”, “better mental functioning”, “good urine output”, “feeling better”, “walking around”, “able to go back to work”. Things that are important to us and to our patient, but barely even measurable. How blunt are they?

My own approach, which I suspect to be yours, too, is to recognize that the new onset shock patient is momentarily different from the chronic CHF patient/”chronic” shock patient you describe above. We know there is an oxygen deficit, and it behooves us to correctly that as quickly as we can. We believe, with some data to back us up, that rapid correction of that deficit, to the extent that we can, can prevent the ugly chronic state. I use the blunt measures of fluid responsiveness in the first hour or two of resuscitation to ensure that the CO component of oxygen delivery is not deficient, and then I stop giving fluid. Early in the course, I am prone to rechecking “volume responsiveness” in some hours, because I know that fluid is leaching out of the vascular space and the patient has not stabilized, yet. All the while, I am highly aware that I am hoping this makes a difference, not knowing that it does. I am aware that it is rather circular to check SVI or IVC, give fluid, see a change and say, “See? Volume responsive.” And all the while knowing that every patient has his or her own line, beyond which more fluid will not be helpful but harmful. And all the while knowing that I can’t see that line, nor measure it with any tool that currently exists.

I think perhaps that we are like Phoenicians, navigating our way across the ocean by the North Star and trying to keep land in sight. We do a pretty good job of getting where we’re going a lot of the time. But won’t it be nice when we come up with GPS? Or even the astrolabe?

SQS

 

Fantastic points!

I can’t agree more. I do check for fluid responsiveness, and I do believe in rapid intervention – just perhaps not quite a vigorous and generous as medical marketing would have us buy. There isn’t more data for that than for a somewhat more conservative approach, in my opinion. Even the rate of administration is rarely looked at, just the totals. There is good animal data showing that, for instance, a more rapid rate of albumin infusion results in greater leak and less intravascular albumin at 6, 12 and 24 hours.  Little reason to think it would be any different in humans.  There is also data showing that the oxygen deficit in sepsis is not as ubiquitous as we think.

Our understanding of the septic disease state is minimal at best, and our tools exceedingly blunt, as you point out.  

GPS or astrolabe would be amazing. I’ve had a few discussions with people working on cytochrome spectroscopy – a possibility to assess mitochondrial “happiness,” which could give us an oxygenation endpoint. Then we could have a trial that might end up showing which degree of mitochondrial oxygenation is optimal, if any.

I know I am playing a bit of a devil’s advocate and that, in strict numbers, I probably don’t give a lot less fluid or a lot slower than most, but I think it is important to keep our minds open to change rather than keep a clenched fist around the ideas we have. 

When we have two docs debating whether IVC, SVV, carotid flow time (I do like Vicki’s stuff a lot) or something else, I think we are mostly in the grey zone, and the good thing is that either way, we are dealing with two docs who are aware and conscientious and doing the rest of the right things. But keep in mind there are a lot of docs out there who are in the acute care front lines who believe that bicarb “buffers” lactate. And by buffers they understand “neutralizes.”

I just hope that when the GPS comes along, we don’t lose ten years of knowledge translation time because we are still clinging to (at that point) outdated ideas like the IVC ultrasound… 😉

cheers and thanks so much for contributing fantastic material!

Philippe

Marco says:

Philippe, I really feel like being on your same wavelength when I read your posts about fluid responsiveness. I think it’s obviously easy to agree that a bleeding hypovolemic patient is fluid responsive AND needs fluids, but the more accurately I think about the physiology of fluid resuscitation when a nurse is asking me “should we give him some fluids?” the more I realise that the “grey zone” is large and its upper limit is not easily detectable. Probably if you fill your patients to the point where they are no more fluid responsive, you are sure that no more fluid is needed, but you should be able to stop a bit earlier.
Blunt instruments and measures are an issue, and integration of the data is a possible solution (at least until a GPS comes along), but critical thinking is always a valuable resource.
The more I grow old the more I become minimalist in my approach to the “chronic acute ill” patient (90% of the patients on an ordinary day in my ICU). If a patient is in the grey zone, with a reasonably good hemodynamic stability, some vasopressor support, low dose diuretics and his urine output decreases, probably the decision of giving him fluids OR diuretics would be equally harmful. When a patient is in the grey zone and your instruments are not so accurate, it’s better to keep him safely in the grey zone. When you are in the mountains, you are caught in a snowstorm and cannot find your tracks, the safest decision is to stop and wait.. or follow your GPS 😉

Marco

thanks!

You hit the nail on the head with “integration is key.”

Philippe

July 6, 2014

Bedside Ultrasound in Cardiac Arrest: A Quick Overview, ISURA 2014. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

Here’s a quick lecture I gave at Vincent Chan’s ISURA 2014 in Toronto.  It was a great event attracting anasthetists from all over the world, and it was an honor to work with Massimiliano Meineiri, Alberto Goffi, Adriaan Van Rensburg, Colin Royse and many more.

Unfortunately it was my first time using Prezi, which is pretty cool but doesnèt allow you to loop your videos, which really, really sucks!  So unfortunately the clips are very short…

Love to hear any comments!

Philippe