Internal and emergency medicine
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Acute bacterial meningitis is rare, but can be fulminant unless rapidly evaluated and treated. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether serum procalcitonin (PCT) levels could predict unfavorable outcomes of bacterial meningitis. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 604 meningitis patients from the emergency department (ED) of our tertiary care, university-affiliated hospital over a five-year period. ⋯ As assessed using receiver operating characteristic curves for an unfavorable outcome, the area under the PCT curve was 0.708 (95 % CI 0.58-0.84, p < 0.01). When the PCT cutoff value was ≥1.10 ng/mL, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for an unfavorable outcome were 75, 70, 62, and 81 %, respectively. An association between the serum PCT level and an unfavorable outcome is observed.
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Medical graduates entering residency often lack confidence and competence in procedural skills. Implementation of ultrasound (US)-guided procedures into undergraduate medical education is a logical step to addressing medical student procedural competency. The objective of our study was to determine the impact of an US teaching workshop geared toward training medical students in how to perform three distinct US-guided procedures. ⋯ Students' overall confidence in needle guidance improved from 3.1 (SD 2.4) to 7.8 (SD 1.5) (p < 0.05). Student assessment of procedural competency using an objective and validated assessment tool demonstrated statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvement in all procedures. The one-day US education workshop employed in this study was effective at immediately increasing third-year medical students' confidence and technical skill at performing US-guided procedures.
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The objective of this study is to report the clinical course and risk factors of trunk cellulitis, to identify diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, and compare them to patients with lower limb cellulitis. Medical records of adult patients with trunk cellulitis were reviewed and compared to an equal number of randomly selected patients with lower limb cellulitis. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were collected and analyzed using binary univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. ⋯ Laboratory data are similar in both groups. There are risk factors for trunk cellulitis compared to lower limb cellulitis. However, diagnostic and therapeutic approaches are similar, except for a trend for more surgical interventions.
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Review
The current understanding of trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC): a focused review on pathophysiology.
The emergency management of acute severe bleeding in trauma patients has changed significantly in recent years. In particular, greater attention is now being devoted to a prompt assessment of coagulation alterations, which allows for immediate haemostatic resuscitation procedures when necessary. The importance of an early trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC) diagnosis has led physicians to increase the efforts to better understand the pathophysiological alterations observed in the haemostatic system after traumatic injuries. ⋯ In major traumas, coagulopathic bleeding stems from a complex interplay among haemostatic and inflammatory systems, and is characterized by a multifactorial dysfunction. In the abundance of biochemical and pathophysiological changes occurring after trauma, it is possible to discern endogenously induced primary predisposing conditions and exogenously induced secondary predisposing conditions. TIC remains one of the most diagnostically and therapeutically challenging condition.