Author: American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)
Date: April 22, 2014
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140422084509.htm
Summary:
Doctors, participating in a large multi-center study, have discovered a new prediction tool that can help identify patients who are at a high risk of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) after surgery. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome is a sudden failure of the lungs that can be brought on by many different things. This new prediction tool ranks patients' risk levels based on nine factors. The factors include, "blood infection (sepsis), liver disease, high-risk surgery on the heart or aorta, emergency surgery, admission from a location other than home, an increased respiratory rate, and two measures that show the patient has lower-than-normal oxygen levels in the blood." With this new method, doctors could save many of lives 30% of the 200,000 americans who have this condition every year, die from it. Using this new prediction method, doctors can take measures during surgery to prevent this from happening. They can use different methods to ventilate the lungs and they can also restrict the administered volume of fluids. Even though only 3% of patients considered at risk actually have this happen, this new method could still save many lives.
Connection:
There are many connections with the human body systems. One very broad connection is that it relates to the respiratory system because it prevents a respiratory disease. Also, the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome causes many types of homeostatic imbalance, which we discussed in class. Homeostatic imbalance is when the body isn' t able to maintain a stable internal environment. Some include, difficulty getting air to the lungs and low blood-oxygen levels. Also, some of the factors used to rank patients are related to other organs that we have discussed in the past unit. For example, liver disease and surgery on the heart or aorta, which we studied during class with the circulatory system. There are many different connections, however these are the main ones.
How can liver disease and admission from a location other than home lead to respiratory failure?
ReplyDeleteWhat causes ARDS? Specifically, why would patients be at high risk of contracting it after surgery?
ReplyDeleteThere are many possible causes to ARDS. Some include Pneumonia, Sepsis, severe bleeding after injury, injury to the chest or head, and also inhaling smoke or fumes. Post operation patients are at a higher risk of contracting ARDS for multiple reasons. One is that some patients develop sepsis after surgery. Sepsis is when bacteria enters the bloodstream; this happens n surgery because the body is open and exposed to many bacteria. It is also shown that lung resections are a main cause of ARDS and this is a surgery.
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