BMC emergency medicine
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BMC emergency medicine · Jan 2019
Randomized Controlled TrialCluster randomised comparison of the effectiveness of 100% oxygen versus titrated oxygen in patients with a sustained return of spontaneous circulation following out of hospital cardiac arrest: a feasibility study. PROXY: post ROSC OXYgenation study.
Hyperoxia following out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with a poor outcome. Animal data suggest the first hour post resuscitation may be the most important. In the UK the first hour usually occurs in the prehospital environment. ⋯ It may be feasible to complete a randomised trial of titrated versus unrestricted oxygen in the first hour after ROSC following OHCA in the UK. However, the relatively few eligible patients and incomplete initiation of the allocated intervention are challenges to future research.
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BMC emergency medicine · Jan 2019
Prehospital cricothyrotomies in a helicopter emergency medical service: analysis of 19,382 dispatches.
Creating a patent airway by cricothyrotomy is the ultimate maneuver to allow oxygenation (and ventilation) of the patient. Given the rarity of airway management catastrophes necessitating cricothyrotomy, sufficiently sized prospective randomized trials are difficult to perform. Our Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) documents all cases electronically, allowing a retrospective analysis of a larger database for all cases of prehospital cricothyrotomy. ⋯ Cricothyrotomy remains, although rare, a regularly occurring requirement in (H)EMS. Our finding of a convincingly high success rate of 94% in trained hands encourages training and a timely performance of cricothyrotomy.
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BMC emergency medicine · Jan 2019
Enhanced prehospital volume therapy does not lead to improved outcomes in severely injured patients with severe traumatic brain injury.
Whether enhanced prehospital volume therapy leads to outcome improvements in severely injured patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of prehospital volume therapy on the clinical course of severely injured patients with severe TBI. ⋯ The data presented in this study demonstrates that prehospital volume administration of more than 1500 ml does not improve severely injured patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
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BMC emergency medicine · Jan 2019
Profile and outcome of patients with emergency complications of renal failure presenting to an urban emergency department of a tertiary hospital in Tanzania.
Renal failure carries high mortality even in high-resource countries. Little attention has been paid to renal failure patients presenting acutely in emergency care settings in low-to-middle income countries (LMIC). Our aim was to describe the profile, management strategies and outcome of renal failure patients presenting with indications for emergent dialysis to an urban Emergency Department (ED) in a tertiary public hospital in Tanzania. ⋯ In this ED in LIC, acute complications of renal failure created a need for ED stabilization and emergent dialysis. Overall in-hospital mortality was high; significantly higher in undialysed patients. Future studies in LICs should focus on identification of categories of patients that will do well with conservative therapy.
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BMC emergency medicine · Jan 2019
Performance of the Manchester triage system in older emergency department patients: a retrospective cohort study.
Studies on the reliability of the MTS and its predictive power for hospitalisation and mortality in the older population have demonstrated mixed results. The objective is to evaluate the performance of the Manchester Triage System (MTS) in older patients (≥65 years) by assessing the predictive ability of the MTS for emergency department resource utilisation, emergency department length of stay (ED-LOS), hospitalisation, and in-hospital mortality rate. The secondary goal was to evaluate the performance of the MTS in older surgical versus medical patients. ⋯ The performance of the MTS appeared inferior in older patients than younger patients, illustrated by a worse predictive ability of the MTS for in-hospital mortality in older patients. The MTS demonstrated a better performance in older surgical patients than older medical patients regarding hospitalisation and in-hospital mortality.