Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Clinical prediction models for risk stratification of older adults with syncope or near syncope may improve resource utilization and management. Predictors considered for inclusion into such models must be reliable. Our primary objective was to evaluate the inter-rater agreement of historical, physical examination, and electrocardiogram (ECG) findings in older adults undergoing emergency department (ED) evaluation for syncope or near syncope. Our secondary objective was to assess the level of agreement between clinicians on the patient's overall risk for death or serious cardiac outcomes. ⋯ Acceptable agreement between raters was more commonly achieved with historical rather than physical examination or ECG interpretation variables. Clinicians had moderate agreement in assessing the patient's overall risk for a serious outcome at 30 days. Future development of clinical prediction models in older adults with syncope should account for variability of assessments between raters and consider the use of objective clinical variables.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of oral sucrose in infants 1 to 3 months old needing intravenous cannulation.
The objective was to compare the efficacy of an oral sucrose versus placebo in reducing pain in infants 1 to 3 months of age during intravenous (IV) cannulation in the emergency department. ⋯ Administration of an oral sucrose solution in infants 1 to 3 months of age during IV cannulation did not lead to statistically significant changes in pain scores. However, the cry time was significantly reduced.
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Spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a rare, but serious etiology of headache. The diagnosis of SAH is especially challenging in alert, neurologically intact patients, as missed or delayed diagnosis can be catastrophic. ⋯ Less than one in 10 headache patients concerning for SAH are ultimately diagnosed with SAH in recent studies. While certain symptoms and signs increase or decrease the likelihood of SAH, no single characteristic is sufficient to rule in or rule out SAH. Within 6 hours of symptom onset, noncontrast cranial CT is highly accurate, while a negative CT beyond 6 hours substantially reduces the likelihood of SAH. LP appears to benefit relatively few patients within a narrow pretest probability range. With improvements in CT technology and an expanding body of evidence, test thresholds for LP may become more precise, obviating the need for a post-CT LP in more acute headache patients. Existing SAH clinical decision rules await external validation, but offer the potential to identify subsets most likely to benefit from post-CT LP, angiography, or no further testing.
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Multicenter Study
The use of very low concentrations of high sensitivity troponin T to rule out acute myocardial infarction using a single blood test.
Recent single-center and retrospective studies suggest that acute myocardial infarction (AMI) could be immediately excluded without serial sampling in patients with initial high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) levels below the limit of detection (LoD) of the assay and no electrocardiogram (ECG) ischemia. ⋯ In the absence of ECG ischemia, the detection of very low concentrations of hs-cTnT at admission seems to allow rapid, safe exclusion of AMI in one-third of patients without serial sampling. This could be used alongside careful clinical assessment to help reduce unnecessary hospital admissions.