Edited by Dr John Kellum
This series of articles in Critical Care has not been sponsored. All articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer review process overseen by the Series Editor, with final decisions made by the Editor in Chief. The Series Editor and Editor in Chief declare no competing interests.
In the critically ill, metabolic acidosis is a common observation and, in clinical practice, the cause of this derangement is often multi-factorial. Various measures are often employed to try and characterise ...
The Canadian physiologist PA Stewart advanced the theory that the proton concentration, and hence pH, in any compartment is dependent on the charges of fully ionized and partly ionized species, and on the prev...
Acid–base abnormalities are common in critically ill patients. Our ability to describe acid–base disorders must be precise. Small differences in corrections for anion gap, different types of analytical process...
Recent advances in acid–base physiology and in the epidemiology of acid–base disorders have refined our understanding of the basic control mechanisms that determine blood pH in health and disease. These refine...
Complex acid–base disorders arise frequently in critically ill patients, especially in those with multiorgan failure. In order to diagnose and treat these disorders better, some intensivists have abandoned tra...
Acid–base abnormalities are common in the critically ill. The traditional classification of acid–base abnormalities and a modern physico-chemical method of categorizing them will be explored. Specific disorder...
Stewart's quantitative physical chemical approach enables us to understand the acid–base properties of intravenous fluids. In Stewart's analysis, the three independent acid–base variables are partial CO2 tension,...
There has been renewed interest in quantifying acid–base disorders in the intensive care unit. One of the methods that has become increasingly used to calculate acid–base balance is the Stewart model. This mod...
Metabolic acidosis is among the most common abnormalities seen in patients suffering from critical illness. Its etiologies are multiple and treatment of the underlying condition is the mainstay of therapy. How...
The recognition and management of acid–base disorders is a commonplace activity for intensivists. Despite the frequency with which non-bicarbonate-losing forms of metabolic acidosis such as lactic acidosis occ...
The history of assessing the acid–base equilibrium and associated disorders is intertwined with the evolution of the definition of an acid. In the 1950s clinical chemists combined the Henderson–Hasselbalch equ...
Acid–base disorders are common in critically ill patients. Metabolic acid–base disorders are particularly common in patients who require acute renal replacement therapy. In these patients, metabolic acidosis i...