Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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The initial 12-lead (12L) electrocardiogram (ECG) has low sensitivity to detect myocardial infarction (MI) and acute coronary syndromes (ACS) in the emergency department (ED). Yet, early therapies in these patients have been shown to improve outcomes. ⋯ Among patients without ST elevation on the 12L ECG, the 80L body surface mapping technology detects more patients with MI or ACS than the 12L, while maintaining a high degree of specificity.
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Comparative Study
Advanced airway management does not improve outcome of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The goal of out-of-hospital endotracheal intubation (ETI) is to reduce mortality and morbidity for patients with airway and ventilatory compromise. Yet several studies, mostly involving trauma patients, have demonstrated similar or worse neurologic outcomes and survival-to-hospital discharge rates after out-of-hospital ETI. To date, there is no study comparing out-of-hospital ETI to bag-valve-mask (BVM) ventilation for the outcome of survival to hospital discharge among nontraumatic adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA) patients. ⋯ In this cohort, when compared to BVM ventilation, advanced airway methods were associated with decreased survival to hospital discharge among adult nontraumatic OOHCA patients.