I have covered calcium channel blockers for atrial fibrillation a number of times. If you are pursuing a rate control approach, calcium channel blockers probably result in more rapid control. Thus, if you are trying to send these patients home, they might be a good choice. However, for long term […]
ebm reviews EM literature (critical appraisals)
The decision between mechanical thrombectomy and catheter directed thrombolysis for pulmonary embolism is not one that most emergency physicians are making. Most (like me) probably don’t even have access to such therapies, which might be a good thing, as both therapies remain completely unproven. However, I thought I would share […]
Do you change your practice when new evidence is published? Will these articles change your practice? Will you read them? Does anyone read them? I don’t know, but here is another month of my reading summarized. For the regular readers, you will have noticed I have taken a few weeks […]
Another month, another set of articles. Perhaps some are useful. Perhaps some will guide your practice. At least one should completely blow your mind.
Antibiotic resistance is an existential problem. Optimizing sepsis care, including the appropriate length of antibiotic therapy, is an important goal. So should we be willing to allow an increase in mortality to reduce total antibiotic use, as the ADAPT-Sepsis non-inferiority design seems to imply?
Despite being widely talked about in glowing terms, the original WOMAN trial was clearly negative, with no benefit in their primary outcome, and no change in all cause mortality, and therefore no hint of benefit. (There is a lot of confusion about what disease specific mortality means when this paper […]
In the most recent BroomeDocs podcast, we talk about an attempt to use the IM route to give cardiac arrest victims epinephrine faster. (The podcast and Research Roundups blog post might actually come out next week.) I was skeptical about the outcomes, partly because the evidence that epinephrine helps at […]
It is pretty rare for the phrase “we need more research” to be immediately followed by more research, but that seems to have happened here.v On October 7 I published my post about the HEMOTION trial, looking at transfusion thresholds in traumatic brain injury, and concluding that despite being a […]
As with everything that comes out of the PECARN group, this is a huge study, and is therefore one that everyone needs to know about. That being said, despite working in two very busy community hospitals with a high percentage of pediatrics visits, c-spine injuries are just not an issue […]