Totem and Taboo: Fluids in sepsis.

Link to article at PubMed

Totem and Taboo: Fluids in sepsis.

Crit Care. 2011 Jun 10;15(3):164

Authors: Hilton AK, Bellomo R

ABSTRACT: The need for early, rapid, and substantial fluid resuscitation in septic patients has long been an article of faith in the intensive care community, a tribal totem that is taboo to question. The results of a recent multicenter trial in septic children in Africa, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, powerfully challenge the fluid paradigm. The salient aspects of the trial need to be understood and reflected upon. In this commentary, we discuss the background to and findings of the trial and explain why they will likely trigger a re-evaluation of our thinking about fluids in sepsis, a re-evaluation that is already happening in the treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute kidney injury and in postoperative care.

PMID: 21672278 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *