The American journal of emergency medicine
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Observational Study
Identifying low-risk chest pain in the emergency department: Obstructive coronary artery disease and major adverse cardiac events.
Accurate risk stratification for obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) and major cardiac adverse events (MACE) is important in emergency departments. We compared six established chest pain risk scores (the HEART score, CAD basic model, CAD clinical model, TIMI, GRACE, uDF) for prediction of obstructive CAD and MACE. ⋯ The HEART score was superior to other cardiac risk scores in predicting both obstructive CAD and MACE. However, due to the high false-negative rate (11%) of the HEART score, its use for identifying low-risk patients should be considered with caution.
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Anticoagulation is key to the treatment/prevention of thromboembolic events. The primary complication of anticoagulation is serious or life-threatening hemorrhage, which may necessitate prompt anticoagulation reversal; this could also be required for nonbleeding patients requiring urgent/emergent invasive procedures. The decision to reverse anticoagulation should weigh the benefit-risk ratio of supporting hemostasis versus post-reversal thrombosis. ⋯ In general, available guidelines are consistent in their recommendations, advocating administration of vitamin K and 4-factor prothrombin complex concentrates (4F-PCCs) rather than fresh frozen plasma to patients with VKA-associated intracranial hemorrhage and life-threatening bleeding, and specific reversal agents as essential therapy for DOAC reversal in those same severe conditions. However, guidelines also recommend off-label use of PCCs for DOAC reversal when specific reversal agents are unavailable. Limited recent evidence generally support the latter recommendation, but guidelines are likely to evolve as more data become available.
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Observational Study
Predictive factors for acute brain lesions on magnetic resonance imaging in acute carbon monoxide poisoning.
Acute brain lesions on diffusion-weighted-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after acute carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning were associated with delayed neurological sequelae. This study was conducted to identify the risk factors associated with acute brain lesions on MRI after acute CO poisoning and to help select patients who need acute-phase brain MRI after acute CO poisoning in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Acute-phase brain MRI in acute CO poisoning can be considered for patients who present at the ED with a GCS score <9 or troponin-I level >0.105 ng/mL.
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Case Reports
Ultrasound-guided transgluteal sciatic nerve analgesia for refractory back pain in the ED: A case series.
Sciatic radicular back pain is a painful condition resulting in approximately 2% of emergency department (ED) visits a year. Typically, the ED treatment has been limited to various analgesic regimens with limited success sometimes resulting in hospital admissions for pain control. ⋯ The transgluteal sciatic nerve block (TGSNB) is a procedure that can provide effective analgesia for lower extremity pain. Herein, we present the first technical description and clinical response to ultrasound-guided TGSNB performed by emergency physicians for acute pain control of sciatic back pain through a series of cases.
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Systemic reactions from local tetracaine use are often an anomaly - not only is tetracaine short-acting and quickly metabolized by the pseudocholinesterase system leading to very limited systemic uptake, but most adverse reactions are usually associated with dental or spinal anesthesia. Furthermore, reactions to local anesthetics manifest in standard allergy-type reactions. When local anesthetics lead to nervous or cardiac system abnormalities, it is termed a local anesthetic systemic toxicity - an event with an incidence currently estimated to be 0.03%. ⋯ This case illustrates a case of LAST in a patient with previous Lidocaine allergy without any other obvious risk factors. There have been no cases of cross-reaction between lidocaine and tetracaine so it explores the possibility of patients having cross reaction to those two different kinds of local anesthetic.