Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Apr 2022
Observational StudyVascular injury is an infrequent finding following non-fatal strangulation in two Australian trauma centres.
Non-fatal strangulation assessment is challenging for clinicians as clear guidelines for evaluation are limited. The prevalence of non-fatal strangulation events, clinical findings, frequency of injury on computed tomography angiogram (CTA) and outcomes across two trauma centres will be used to improve this assessment process. ⋯ In non-fatal strangulation presentations, the majority have subtle signs of neck injury on examination with inconsistent documentation of findings. Low rate of vascular injury overall (0.7%), and entirely in hanging events. No longer-term vascular sequalae identified. Improving documentation focusing on hypoxic insult and evidence of airway trauma is warranted, rather than a reliance on computed tomography imaging to delineate a traumatic event in non-fatal strangulation.
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Emerg Med Australas · Apr 2022
Conservative management of traumatic pneumothoraces: A retrospective cohort study.
Traumatic pneumothoraces (T-PTXs) are traditionally managed with an intercostal catheter (ICC), despite little evidence for this. Success with conservative management of primary spontaneous PTX has been demonstrated, and our ED has adopted a conservative approach where safe for all PTX. ⋯ Our data support conservative management of selected T-PTXs and shows a need for a prospective randomised trial to further examine this intervention.