Clinical medicine & research
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Traumatic brain injury and intracranial hypertension often require treatment to optimize patient outcome. There are a variety of complex medical conditions that can preclude standard approaches to the treatment of intracranial hypertension. We describe a case where a novel approach using continuous dialysis with trisodium citrate was used to optimize the outcome of a young male with acute renal failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome in the setting of acute traumatic brain injury.
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Aspirin therapy is well-accepted as an agent for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular events and current guidelines also define a role for aspirin in primary prevention. In this review, we describe the seminal trials of aspirin use in the context of current guidelines, discuss factors that may influence the effectiveness of aspirin therapy for cardiovascular disease prevention, and briefly examine patterns of use. The body of evidence supports a role for aspirin in both secondary and primary prevention of cardiovascular events in selected population groups, but practice patterns may be suboptimal. As a simple and inexpensive prophylactic measure for cardiovascular disease, aspirin use should be carefully considered in all at-risk adult patients, and further measures, including patient education, are necessary to ensure its proper use.
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Observational Study
Variability of door-to-device times at a rural tertiary care center.
Target door-to-device (DTD) time for ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients has been 90 minutes, with no distinction between urban and rural hospitals. Rural hospitals have longer DTD times for transferred patients attributed to long transportation times from referring hospitals. Longer DTD times have also been reported during after-hours. The aim of the study was to determine whether DTD times at our rural facility were impacted by arrival method, arrival time period, and season. ⋯ Our data confirm that in a rural facility such as ours, ED patients arriving during after-hours and transferred patients have longer DTD times. Methods are being implemented to shorten the time to assemble the catheterization lab team during after-hours. Better performance will be seen once the first medical contact to device (FTD) time goal of 120 minutes for transferred patients is adopted at our institution. Fibrinolytic therapy should be considered at referring institutions where the FTD time is expected to exceed 120 minutes.
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Liver transplantation regularly requires transfusion of red blood cells (RBCs), plasma, and platelets. Compared to fresh frozen plasma (FFP) from single blood donors, solvent/detergent-treated plasma (SD-plasma) pooled from several hundred blood donors has advantages with respect to pathogen reduction, standardized content of plasma proteins, and significantly reduced risk of transfusion related lung injury and allergic/immunologic adverse reactions. However, SD-plasma has been suspected to increase the incidence of hyperfibrinolysis and thromboembolic events. ⋯ SD-plasma is a safe plasma product for liver transplant recipients, and the incidences of hyperfibrinolysis and thromboembolic events are not significantly different from those seen in centers using FFP.
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Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, with lifetime prevalence of use estimated at 42% to 46%. The antiemetic properties of cannabis are well-known by the medical community and the general public; however, less well-recognized is the paradoxical potential for certain chronic users to develop hyperemesis. We describe in this case a patient with prior extensive work-up for nausea and vomiting and previous diagnosis of cyclic vomiting syndrome who presented with characteristic features of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. We review the current literature for this condition and highlight potential mechanisms for its pathogenesis.