The American journal of emergency medicine
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Review Meta Analysis
Association between body mass index and clinical outcomes of patients after cardiac arrest and resuscitation: A meta-analysis.
Obesity as one of the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases increases mortality in general population. Several clinical studies investigated clinical outcomes in patients with different body mass index (BMI) after cardiac arrest (CA). Controversial data regarding BMI on clinical outcomes in those patients exist in those studies. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of BMI on survival condition and neurological prognosis in those patients. ⋯ Low BMI was associated with lower survival rate in CA patients. Overweight was associated with a higher survival rate and better neurological recovery. Clinical outcomes did not differ between obese and normal weight patients. Further studies are needed to explore the underlying mechanisms.
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Clinical Trial
Emergency medical technician-performed point-of-care blood analysis using the capillary blood obtained from skin puncture.
Comparing a point-of-care (POC) test using the capillary blood obtained from skin puncture with conventional laboratory tests. ⋯ Most parameters, except only pO2, measured by the epoc were equivalent to or correlated with those from the reference method.
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Refractory ventricular fibrillation occurs when there are three or more episodes of ventricular fibrillation within a 24-hour period. We report the first case of a 35-year-old woman without prior medical or family cardiac history who sustained refractory ventricular fibrillation while taking Lamictal for bipolar depression. ⋯ The patient received a Subcutaneous Implantable Cardio-Defibrillator and was discharged home. There was no identifiable cardiac or medical cause of her ventricular fibrillation and the electrophysiologist suspected Lamictal caused her refractory ventricular fibrillation.