The American journal of emergency medicine
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This study aimed to assess the impact of different methods of draining nontraumatic hemopericardium on outcome from patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), identify independent predictors of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), and examine the ineffective rate of decompression based on subxiphoid pericardiotomy (SP) and percutaneous pericardial catheter drainage (PCD). ⋯ The early effective decompression method is associated with an increased rate of ROSC for OHCA patients with nontraumatic hemopericardium. Subxiphoid pericardiotomy has a better effective decompression of hemopericardium than PCD.
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Emergency physicians attending to pediatric patients in acute care settings use electrocardiograms (ECGs) for a variety of reasons, including syncope, chest pain, ingestion, suspected dysrhythmias, and as part of the initial evaluation of suspected congenital heart disease. Thus, it is important for emergency and acute care providers to be familiar with the normal pediatric ECG in addition to common ECG abnormalities seen in the pediatric population. The purpose of this 3-part review will be to review (1) age-related changes in the pediatric ECG, (2) common arrhythmias encountered in the pediatric population, and (3) ECG indicators of structural and congenital heart disease in the pediatric population.
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Low back pain with sciatica is one of the most common complaints of patients presenting to the ED, and it is usually managed on an outpatient basis. However, acute lower back pain not always derives from a benign cause. We report here the case of a 63-year-old diabetic man who presented to the ED complaining of acute low back pain with sciatica and fever. The cause was a large paravertebral abscess by Streptococcus milleri, and this was the first presenting sign of an unknown underlying colonic cancer.
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We hypothesize that not all of the traditional risk factors of impacting mortality rate in commonly traumatic populations with posttraumatic acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are independently associated with those patient populations identified with severe multiple trauma. Rather, we postulate that there may exist significantly different impacting degrees of specific risk factors in stratified patients (surviving beyond 24 and 96 hours)--more severe multiple trauma with higher injury score and long-term mechanical ventilation as well. ⋯ Impact of pulmonary contusion and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score contributing to prediction of mortality may exist in the early phase after trauma. Sepsis is still a vital risk factor referring to systemic inflammatory response syndrome, infection, secondary multiple organ dysfunction, etc. Discharging trauma factors as early as possible becomes the critical therapeutic measure. Aspiration of gastric contents in emergency intensive care unit admission could lead to incremental mortality rate due to aspiration pneumonia. Long-standing mechanical ventilation should be constrained because it is likely to cause severe refractory complications.
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Patients intubated in the emergency department (ED) often have extended ED stays. We hypothesize that ED intubated patients receive inadequate postintubation anxiolysis and analgesia after rapid sequence induction (RSI). ⋯ Patients undergoing RSI in the ED frequently receive inadequate postintubation anxiolysis and analgesia.