Chest
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An 18-year-old woman with no previous medical history presented to an outside hospital facility with acute chest pain. She had mild shortness of breath, particularly with exertion, for the prior 2 months.
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Cardiac arrest continues to represent a public health burden with most patients having dismal outcomes. CPR is a complex set of interventions requiring leadership, coordination, and best practices. Despite the widespread adoption of new evidence in various guidelines, the provision of CPR remains variable with poor adherence to published recommendations. ⋯ Feedback devices provide instantaneous guidance to the rescuer, improve rescuer technique, and could impact patient outcomes. New technologies promise to improve the resuscitation process: mechanical devices standardize chest compressions, capnography guides resuscitation efforts and signals the return of spontaneous circulation, and intraosseous devices minimize interruptions to gain vascular access. This review aims at identifying a discreet group of interventions that health-care systems can use to raise their standard of cardiac resuscitation.
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Multicenter Study
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is associated with lower short- and long-term mortality in patients with carbon monoxide poisoning.
To date, there has been no consensus about the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) on the mortality of patients with carbon monoxide poisoning (COP). This retrospective nationwide population-based cohort study from Taiwan was conducted to clarify this issue. ⋯ HBOT was associated with a lower mortality rate in patients with COP, especially in those who were younger than 20 years and those with acute respiratory failure. The results provide important references for decision-making in the treatment of COP.
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Multicenter Study
Burden of Adult Community-Acquired, Healthcare-Associated, Hospital-Acquired, and Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia - New York City, 2010-2014.
Although pneumonia is a leading cause of death in New York City (NYC), limited data exist about the settings in which pneumonia is acquired across NYC. Cases of pneumonia acquired in community settings are more likely to be preventable with vaccines and treatable with first-line antibiotics than those acquired in noncommunity settings. The objective of this study was to estimate the burden of hospitalizations associated with community-acquired (CAP), health-care-associated (HCAP), hospital-acquired (HAP), and ventilator-associated (VAP) pneumonia from 2010 to 2014. ⋯ Most pneumonia-associated hospitalizations in NYC involve pneumonias acquired in the community setting. Although 15.6% of pneumonia-associated hospitalizations were categorized as HAP or VAP, these pneumonias accounted for > 25% of deaths from pneumonia-associated hospitalizations. Public health pneumonia prevention efforts need to target both community and hospital settings.
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Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2017, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)-the chronic lung disease of prematurity that follows ventilator and oxygen therapy for acute respiratory failure-remains the most frequent complication of extreme prematurity. Survival of premature infants born at increasingly earlier stages of gestation has made the prevention of lung injury increasingly challenging. BPD is postulated to be a misdirection of many functions in the developing lung, including growth factor signalling and matrix as well as cellular composition, resulting in impaired alveolar and lung vascular growth. ⋯ Stem cells are essential for normal organ development, maintenance, and repair. It is therefore biologically plausible that exhaustion/dysfunction of resident lung stem cells contributes to the inability of the immature lung to repair itself. Understanding how normal lung stem cells function and how these cells are perturbed in BPD may prove useful in designing superior cell products with enhanced repair capabilities to ensure the successful translation of basic research into clinical practice.