Arch Intern Med
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Case Reports
Pulmonary edema associated with subarachnoid hemorrhage. Evidence for a cardiogenic origin.
A 56-year-old woman with no history of cardiac disease developed acute pulmonary edema following a subarachnoid hemorrhage. A constellation of findings, including elevated creatine kinase MB isoenzyme activity in the absence of electrocardiographic or scintigraphic evidence of acute myocardial infarction, elevated pulmonary artery wedge pressure, segmental wall motion abnormalities, and depressed ejection fraction of the left ventricle demonstrated by two-dimensional echocardiography and radionuclear ventriculography, pointed to a direct myocardial injury leading to cardiac failure. The evidence for cardiogenic origin of pulmonary edema provided by this case is in contrast to the belief that "neurogenic" pulmonary edema is of noncardiac origin.
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Over a 13-month period, serum potassium and magnesium levels were measured in 590 patients admitted to a coronary care unit. Hypokalemia, often in the absence of diuretic use, occurred in 17% of the 211 patients with acute myocardial infarction. Patients with acute myocardial infarction and a potassium level of less than 4.0 mEq/L (4.0 mmol/L) had an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias (59% vs 42%). ⋯ Ventricular arrhythmias occurred in ten of the 13 patients with both acute myocardial infarction and hypomagnesemia, but eight of these patients also had low serum potassium levels. This low incidence of hypomagnesemia does not justify routine measurement of serum magnesium levels. However, the mean level (2.5 +/- 0.4 mg/dL [1.03 +/- 0.16 mmol/L]) in a reference population of healthy volunteers was unexpectedly high and suggests that the low incidence of hypomagnesemia in our population may not be applicable to other centers and may reflect a higher magnesium content in our geographic area of southeastern Ontario.
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Prompt management of patients suffering acute myocardial infarction requires accurate early diagnosis based on the electrocardiogram. To assess the predictive value of ST segment elevation and ST segment depression (both greater than or equal to 0.1 mV) for the diagnosis of evolving myocardial infarction, we studied 100 consecutive patients admitted to the coronary care unit of The New York Hospital with at least 30 minutes of chest pain. Of 31 patients with ST segment elevation, 26 patients (84%) evolved myocardial infarction (positive test results for serum creatine phosphokinase-MB isoenzyme fraction), while only 13 (48%) of 27 patients with ST segment depression had myocardial infarctions. ⋯ False-positive diagnoses of acute injury were due to ST elevation in the area of prior Q wave infarction. Prior myocardial infarction did not alter the lower predictive value of ST segment depression for evolving infarction. We conclude that patients presenting with chest pain and ST segment elevation have approximately twice the likelihood of myocardial infarction than patients with ST segment depression; incorporation of historic information regarding prior myocardial infarction can improve the predictive value of ST segment elevations to 100% but does not improve prediction with ST segment depressions.
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Comparative Study
Evaluation of creatine kinase and creatine kinase-MB for diagnosing myocardial infarction. Clinical impact in the emergency room.
We prospectively studied the performance of emergency room strategies using a single sampling of total creatine kinase (CK) only and total CK with, if total CK levels were elevated, CK-MB levels in 639 patients with acute chest pain, including 386 patients who were admitted and 253 patients who were discharged. Acute myocardial infarction was diagnosed in 104 patients and excluded in 535. ⋯ Since a very positive CK-MB in a low-risk patient can greatly raise the probability of myocardial infarction, future strategies using CK-MB may have a role in selected subsets in determining which patients should not be sent home. However, the sensitivity of a single sampling of CK and CK-MB is too low for these assays to be used to exclude myocardial infarction in the emergency room or to be used as the rationale for deciding not to admit a patient.
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A 65-year-old woman with adult Still's disease developed adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a fatal pulmonary complication. Intravenous administration of cyclophosphamide, 500 mg/d for three days, was much more effective than high doses of corticosteroids in the patient. ⋯ The association of ARDS with adult Still's disease has not yet been reported. Physicians should be aware of this fatal complication in adult Still's disease, especially in the presence of drug hypersensitivities.