Guideline Updates in 2025: The Year in Critical Care
Part 7 of the wrap
New CPR guidelines: What changed?
New guidelines on cardiopulmonary resuscitation in adults were published in Circulation in November 2024. They’re 187 pages long.
2025 Guideline on Acute Coronary Syndromes and Myocardial Infarctions
New recommendations for the management of acute coronary syndrome and myocardial infarction were issued in early 2025.
Why don't oncologists refer to palliative care?
"Should palliative care concurrent with oncology care be standard practice?
The Real-World Boards: Question #18
These are the Real-World Boards. As in the real world, there may be no single “right” answer, and you are only competing against yourself. Upgrade to the Lifelong Learner level for full access to all the questions and unlimited CME credits with an included Learner+ account.
A "perfect" test to predict (bad) outcomes after cardiac arrest?
When a person survives a cardiac arrest but doesn’t wake up for days, families need to make wrenching decisions to either continue or withdraw life-sustaining therapies.
Guideline review: Transfusing fresh frozen plasma and platelets in critical illness
Coagulation abnormalities (e.g., an elevated international normalized ratio or INR) and thrombocytopenia are present in most severely ill patients.
Guidelines on Red Cell Transfusion (Review)
Anemia is the norm among critically ill patients, who were historically transfused to normal or near-normal hemoglobin levels in the hope of optimizing their physiology and chances for recovery.
Platelet Transfusion 2025 Guideline Update (Critical care, AABB, ITCMG)
A second 2025 professional guideline document advises a restrictive transfusion strategy for most patients with thrombocytopenia.
Severe Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A 2025 Not-IDSA Guideline
Since 2005, the major professional society for infectious diseases (IDSA) periodically issued joint guidance documents with a major US critical care society on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of community-acquired and hospital-acquired pneumonia.
New Guideline: Get full-body CT scans for post-cardiac arrest patients
In their 2025 updates to post-cardiac arrest management guidelines, the American Heart Association and European Society of Intensive Care Medicine both now suggest that full-body CT scans may be appropriate for most patients after cardiac arrest.
Sedation and Analgesia Guideline Update: Dex vs Propofol
Virtually all critically ill patients experience pain, anxiety, sleep disturbance, agitation, or a combination of these bothersome symptoms. Relieving these burdens should be considered a fundamental aspect of caring for the most seriously ill.
Post-Cardiac Arrest: 2025 Guideline Update
The American Heart Association and the European Society for Intensive Care Medicine each updated their post-cardiac arrest guidelines in 2025.
Sedation, Analgesia, and Sleep Guideline Update: Melatonin
Normal sleep patterns aren’t just altered in critically ill, mechanically ventilated patients—often, they’re virtually wiped out by the use of heavy sedatives around the clock.
NEW GUIDELINE: Ultrasound should be used to manage almost all critically ill patients
By providing a noninvasive way to rapidly assess physiology at the bedside, ultrasonography seems to hold the potential to revolutionize the practice of critical care.
Are you treating the patient, or their family?
Let’s start with something we can all agree on: families are good.
Guideline Update: Transfuse patients with acute MI to Hb ≥10 g/dL (AABB)
For more than 25 years, a restrictive strategy to red cell transfusion has been favored for the critically ill, after the TRICC trial demonstrated that limiting red blood cell transfusion to critically ill patients with hemoglobin <7 g/dL did not worsen outcomes (but did not improve them, either).