Ramirez-Estrada S, et al. - In this prospective, observational, multicenter, international study conducted at 13 intensive care units (ICUs), researchers determined the influence of ventilator-associated events (VAEs) as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2008, 2013, on patient outcome. They also investigated the correlation with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) or tracheobronchitis (VAT). Eligible patients included 30 consecutive adults mechanically ventilated for ≥ 48 h per site. These cases were most commonly complicated with respiratory infections (mainly VAT). Only events with surrogates of severe oxygenation deterioration were detected by VAE algorithms. As a consequence, one fourth of the episodes of VAP and three fourths of the episodes of VAT were missed when infection-related ventilator-associated complication definitions were used. Since VAP and VAT had different effects on mortality, it was considered important to identify VAT (often missed by IVAC-plus criteria).