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Ventilator Circuit Changes
- Lenore E. Asbel, MD; and
- Caroline C. Johnson, MD
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
TO THE EDITOR:
In their recent article, Kollef and associates [1] studied whether routinely changing ventilator circuitry affected the incidence of nosocomial pneumonia. We were surprised to see that the results were not expressed as rates of infected patients per 1000 ventilator-days, as recommended by the Hospital Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Infectious Diseases for surveillance of nosocomial pneumonias [2]. The authors report the average duration of mechanical ventilation but not actual rates of infection. Thus, their results cannot be easily compared with those of other studies or with hospital surveillance data [3]. As has been previously stated, “meaningful comparisons [in hospital epidemiology] can be made only if uniform definitions of rates are adopted” [4].
Lenore E. Asbel, MD
Caroline C. Johnson, MD
Medical College of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19129
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
- Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians
