The American journal of emergency medicine
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HELLP (hemolysis, elevated liver enzyme levels, low platelet counts)-syndrome is a rare but dramatic pregnancy-related illness. The difficult part of this syndrome is the lack of standardised diagnostic criterias and tests to be used to predict it. The aim of this study is determining the role of APRI score in the diagnosis of HELLP syndrome. ⋯ We concluded that the APRI score was robustly predicted HELLP syndrome than AST alone in this study. Further studies are needed to support our data with prospective, multicentre, larger patient groups.
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An emergency physician (EP) is often the first health care provider to evaluate, resuscitate, and manage a critically ill patient. In recent years, the annual hours of critical care delivered in emergency departments (EDs) across the United States increased more than 200% (Herring et al., 2013). In addition to seeing more critically ill patients, EPs are often tasked with providing critical care long beyond the initial resuscitation period. ⋯ This review summarizes important articles published in 2018 pertaining to the resuscitation and care of select critically ill patients. We chose these articles based on our opinion of the importance of the study findings and their application to clinical care in the ED. The following topics are covered: cardiac arrest, post-arrest care, septic shock, rapid sequence intubation, mechanical ventilation, fluid resuscitation, and metabolic acidosis.
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The purpose of this review is to provide a brief overview of new life-saving interventions and novel techniques that have been proposed as viable treatment options for patients presenting with refractory ventricular fibrillation/pulseless ventricular tachycardia (VF/pVT) out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). ⋯ We would like to suggest that there is not enough evidence in the existing literature to support at large-scale the effects of these techniques in the treatment of refractory VF/pVT OHCA. Randomized studies are warranted to evaluate the significant effects of these approaches against the best current standard of care.
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Multicenter Study
Dodgeball-related injuries treated at emergency departments.
There is little published information on injuries from playing dodgeball. This investigation described dodgeball-related injuries among children and adults managed at emergency departments (EDs). ⋯ The majority of dodgeball-related injuries occurred among children. Children and adults tended to differ with respect to when and where the injuries occurred as well as the type of injury.
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Significant morbidity and mortality is attributed to infection with the influenza virus annually and care is often sought in Emergency Departments (ED). The exposure of Emergency Department healthcare personnel and subsequent illness is speculated to be high but has not been quantified. ⋯ Among Emergency Department providers, transmission of clinically significant Influenza illness was low.