Swiss medical weekly
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
ReviewNovel psychoactive substances (designer drugs): overview and pharmacology of modulators of monoamine signaling.
Novel psychoactive substances are newly used designer drugs ("internet drugs", "research chemicals", "legal highs") potentially posing similar health risks to classic illicit substances. Chemically, many novel psychoactive substances can be classified as phenethylamines, amphetamines, synthetic cathinones, piperazines, pipradrols/piperidines, aminoindanes benzofurans, and tryptamines. Pharmacologically, these substances interact with various monoaminergic targets. ⋯ Dopaminergic drugs are highly addictive and acute toxicity includes prolonged stimulation, insomnia, agitation, and psychosis. Agitation, anxiety, paranoia, hypertension, and rarely myocardial infarction and renal failure are seen with synthetic cannabinoids. Treatment is supportive.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
ReviewBiomarker-guided personalised emergency medicine for all - hope for another hype?
Polymorbid patients, diverse diagnostic and therapeutic options, more complex hospital structures, financial incentives, benchmarking, as well as perceptional and societal changes put pressure on medical doctors, specifically if medical errors surface. This is particularly true for the emergency department setting, where patients face delayed or erroneous initial diagnostic or therapeutic measures and costly hospital stays due to sub-optimal triage. A "biomarker" is any laboratory tool with the potential better to detect and characterise diseases, to simplify complex clinical algorithms and to improve clinical problem solving in routine care. ⋯ The rational for the use of all these biomarkers, first, tackle diagnostic ambiguity and consecutive defensive medicine, second, delayed and sub-optimal therapeutic decisions, and third, prognostic uncertainty with misguided triage and site-of-care decisions all contributing to the waste of our limited health care resources. A multifaceted approach for a more targeted management of medical patients from emergency admission to discharge including biomarkers, will translate into better resource use, shorter length of hospital stay, reduced overall costs, improved patients satisfaction and outcomes in terms of mortality and re-hospitalisation. Hopefully, the concepts outlined in this review will help the reader to improve their diagnostic skills and become more parsimonious laboratory test requesters.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
ReviewCurrent concepts of protective ventilation during general anaesthesia.
Mechanical ventilation with high tidal volumes (VT) has been common practice in operating theatres because this strategy recruits collapsed lung tissue and improves ventilation-perfusion mismatch, thus decreasing the need for high inspired oxygen concentrations. Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) was not used routinely because it was thought to impair cardiovascular function. Over the past two decades there have been advances in our understanding of the causes and importance of ventilation-induced lung injury based on studies in animals with healthy lungs, and trials in critically ill patients with and without acute respiratory distress syndrome. Recent data from randomised controlled trials in patients receiving ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery have demonstrated that lung-protective strategies (use of low VT, use of PEEP if indicated, and avoidance of excessive oxygen concentrations) are also of importance during intraoperative ventilation.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
Review"The obesity paradox" in disease--is the protective effect of obesity true?
Although obesity and the associated metabolic syndrome negatively impact on health outcomes, a paradoxical relationship between obesity and mortality has been reported for specific patient populations - the "obesity paradox". However, underlying mechanisms remain unclear and several possible explanations are being discussed. ⋯ Second, a statistical bias is possible, owing to confounding, selection bias, performance bias and measurement bias of most observational studies reporting the obesity paradox. Within this article, we summarise current concepts regarding the underlying pathophysiology and possible explanation for the obesity paradox, and discuss open questions such as whether age is an effect modifier on the relationship of obesity and mortality.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2015
Pulseless electrical activity cardiac arrest: time to amend the mnemonic "4H&4T"?
Pulseless electrical activity (PEA) cardiac arrest is characterised by a residual organised electrical activity. PEA is frequently induced by reversible conditions. The mnemonic "4H&4T" was proposed as a reminder to assess for Hypoxia, Hypovolaemia, Hypo/Hyperkalaemia, Hypothermia, Thrombosis, cardiac Tamponade, Toxins, and Tension pneumothorax. Other potential aetiologies have been identified, but their respective probability and frequencies are unclear. The aim of this study was to analyse the aetiologies of PEA out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and to evaluate their relative frequencies. ⋯ Intracranial haemorrhage and nonischaemic cardiac disorders represent significant causes of PEA, with a prevalence equalling or exceeding the frequency of classical 4H&4T aetiologies. These conditions are potentially accessible to simple diagnostic procedures (computed tomography or echocardiography).