Annals of emergency medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Optimum position for external cardiac compression in infants and young children.
Ninety-seven pediatric patients (age less than 17 years) undergoing routine upright chest roentgenograms in the posteroanterior projection and 90 children undergoing supine anteroposterior chest roentgenograms had lead markers placed at the suprasternal notch and xiphoid prior to taking the roentgenograms. The position of the geometric center of the cardiac silhouette in relation to the sternum was recorded as a percentage of the distance along the sternum. ⋯ The ECC performers were instructed to perform ECC at either the midsternum at the level of the victim's nipples or at the lower one-third of the sternum 1.5 to 2 cm above the tip of the xiphoid, and then to switch on command. In every instance in which the patients served as their own controls (ECC performed at both the midsternum and lower one-third of the sternum in random sequence), the performance of ECC over the lower one-third of the sternum resulted in significantly better systolic and mean arterial blood pressures (P less than .001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) often results in traumatic injury to the patient. Differences in CPR-induced trauma among various forms of manual, external CPR, however, are unknown. We compared CPR-induced trauma among manual standard (STD) CPR at 60 compressions per minute; high-impulse compression (HIC) CPR at 120 compressions per minute; and interposed abdominal compression (IAC) CPR at 60 compressions per minute. ⋯ Six of 20 initially resuscitated animals expired during the 24-hour follow-up period due to CPR-induced injuries. Four of these six had extensive pulmonary trauma, including pulmonary hemorrhage or edema. Liver lacerations were the second most lethal injury.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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The effectiveness of bystander CPR recently has been challenged. We undertook a ten-year retrospective review of our prehospital experience with witnessed cardiorespiratory arrest to ascertain save rates in patients receiving and not receiving CPR before paramedic advanced life support (ALS). Traumatic and poisoning arrests and children less than 18 years old were excluded. ⋯ A save was defined as a patient discharged from the hospital. The respective save rates for coarse ventricular fibrillation were 148 of 628 (23.6%) (CPR before paramedic arrival) vs 35 of 151 (CPR delayed until paramedic arrival) (23.2%); electromechanical dissociation (EMD), 11 of 209 (5.3%) vs 0 of 38; asystole, 19 of 401 (4.7%) vs 3 of 61 (4.9%); and ventricular tachycardia, four of ten (40%) vs 0 of two. In this prehospital system, bystander/first responder CPR was found not to improve hospital discharge rates except in patients with initially documented rhythm of EMD.
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We recently saw a 12-year-old black boy with known sickle cell disease who had been seen many times for abdominal pain thought to be secondary to a vasoocclusive crisis. The patient eventually was admitted, after a seizure and the onset of obtundation. The etiology of his acute encephalopathy remained unclear until bone films of his knees fortuitously revealed "lead lines." The patient was treated and did well subsequently. This case emphasizes the importance of considering other diagnoses when a sickle cell patient presents with a crisis.