Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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To quantify the health gains and costs associated with improving ambulance and thrombolysis response times for acute myocardial infarction. ⋯ Improving ambulance response times appears to be cost effective. Reducing door-to-needle time will have a smaller effect at an uncertain cost. Further benefits may be gained from reducing the time from onset of symptoms to starting thrombolysis.
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To establish the prevalence of previously undiagnosed dyslipidaemia in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with non-traumatic chest pain and, more particularly, the prevalence in the subgroup which was discharged home from the ED, the group that traditionally would not have received a lipid test. ⋯ A moderate, but useful, increase in detection rates of dyslipidaemia is possible if lipid testing is offered to all patients presenting with chest pain, and not just to those who are admitted to wards for further investigation and management of suspected acute coronary syndromes. Testing of this group should be considered as a health promotion initiative in the ED, with appropriate follow up in the community.
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Vehicle accidents in Greece are among the leading causes of death and the primary one in young people. The mechanism of injury influences the patterns of injury in victims of vehicle accidents. ⋯ The results reveal a clear association between different road-user categories and age and sex incidence patterns, as well as outcomes and injury profiles. Recognition of these features would be useful in designing effective prevention strategies and in comprehensive prehospital and inhospital treatment of motor-vehicle trauma patients.