Tag: corneal abrasion

Articles of the month (July 2017)

A monthly summary of the emergency medicine literature

Welcome back to another edition of the articles of the month. I am considering changing the format of my article reviews going forward. Because multiple articles are grouped together in a single post, I frequently have a hard time finding articles I have reviewed when I am looking for them. I might start posting each article as its own blog post, with 8-10 posts over the course of a month. I’d love to hear what people think of that idea – whether it would be better or worse for your reading habits. Either way, Casey and I will still discuss the best articles each month on the Broome Docs podcast. Continue reading “Articles of the month (July 2017)”

Articles of the month (November 2015)

A monthly collection of the most interesting emergency medical literature I have encountered.

Here is this month’s summary of my favorite reads from the medical literature…

Bronchiolitis – it will take your breath away

Willwerth BM, Harper MB, Greenes DS. Identifying hospitalized infants who have bronchiolitis and are at high risk for apnea. Ann Emerg Med. 2006;48:(4)441-7. PMID: 16997681

Its that time of year. Some children are beginning to hold their breath in anticipation of Christmas. Or, maybe that was an apneic spell from bronchiolitis? Which children are at risk? This is a retrospective cohort of 691 children less than 6 months old who were admitted to the hospital for bronchiolitis looking at risk factors associated with apnea. The authors found that full term babies less than 1 month old, preterm babies less than 48 weeks post-conception, and babies whose caregivers had already witnessed an apnea spell were at higher risk for further apnea spells. Overall 19 (2.5% 95%CI 1.7-4.3) children had apnea spells while admitted, and all 19 met one of the criteria above.

Bottom line: 2.5% is relatively low risk, but breathing is relatively important. I would have the pediatricians review the kids that fall into these categories.

More bronchiolitis and the need for oxygen

Cunningham S, Rodriguez A, Adams T. Oxygen saturation targets in infants with bronchiolitis (BIDS): a double-blind, randomised, equivalence trial. Lancet (London, England). 386(9998):1041-8. 2015. PMID: 26382998

This is a multi-center, randomized, controlled trial of children aged 6 weeks to 12 months admitted to hospital with bronchiolitis. This children were either placed on a standard sat probe or one that was altered so that a sat of 90% would display as 94%. Staff were instructed to provide oxygen to any child with a sat less than 94%. (94% seems like a pretty high target. I am more interested in whether we should be starting oxygen at say 92% or 88% or even lower.) I think they chose a pretty poor primary outcome: time to resolution of cough. For what it’s worth, it was equivalent, but did we really think oxygen could cure cough? Some secondary outcomes were also not affected, but none capture why I give oxygen. Oxygen is given when children are approaching the steep portion of the oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve to prevent precipitous drops, desaturations, and bad outcomes. The authors do report no change in ‘adverse events’, but if you look at the supplement, respiratory adverse events were things like cough and otitis media. Although I believe we probably over-treat bronchiolitis, this is another in a slew of papers that fails to actually prove that it is safe to withhold oxygen or discharge patients with low oxygen saturations.

Bottom line: Oxygen saturation is still an important parameter to monitor in bronchiolitis. We don’t know the ideal saturation to target.  

Children inhaling salt water – no, not drowning, but bronchiolitis treatment

Silver AH, Esteban-Cruciani N, Azzarone G. 3% Hypertonic Saline Versus Normal Saline in Inpatient Bronchiolitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Pediatrics. 2015. PMID: 26553190

This is a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial from a single pediatric hospital comparing 4 ml of either 3% saline or 0.9% saline nebulized every 4 hours in 227 children under 12 months old with bronchiolitis. There was no difference in any of the many outcomes they measured, including length of stay, ICU admission, readmission, and objective respiratory findings. Of course, it’s possible that normal saline is more therapeutic than no treatment – but, come on, you know that nothing works in bronchiolitis.

Bottom line: No treatments work in bronchiolitis. Do you think we will ever come to terms with that?

It might just be the season, but it seems like I am obsessed with wheezing kids

Cronin JJ, McCoy S, Kennedy U. A Randomized Trial of Single-Dose Oral Dexamethasone Versus Multidose Prednisolone for Acute Exacerbations of Asthma in Children Who Attend the Emergency Department. Annals of emergency medicine. 2015. PMID: 26460983

I have covered dexamethasone versus prednisone for asthma before, but here is another RCT. In 245 pediatric patients (aged 2-16) with asthma, they compared a single dose of dexamethasone (0.3mg/kg) to prednisolone (1mg/kg) for 3 days. Their primary outcome was a PRAM score on day 4 and there was no difference between the two.

Bottom line: I will continue using the easier single dose dexamethasone over prednisone.

More shots fired in the continuing Roc versus Sux RSI battle

Tran DT, Newton EK, Mount VA, Lee JS, Wells GA, Perry JJ. Rocuronium versus succinylcholine for rapid sequence induction intubation. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews. 10:CD002788. 2015. PMID: 26512948

This one is going to ruffle a few feathers. Let’s start with the author’s conclusions: “Succinylcholine created superior intubation conditions to rocuronium in achieving excellent and clinically acceptable intubating conditions.” This is a cochrane review that includes 50 trials covering 4151 patients. For “excellent intubating conditions” succinylcholine was superior to rocuronium (RR 0.86 95%CI 0.81-0.92). The problem with this conclusion is the significant heterogeneity in the included studies. For me, the biggest concern is varying doses. In fact, the authors even conclude that if you use 1.2mg/kg of rocuronium (the appropriate dose for RSI) there was no difference between roc and sux. Unfortunately, they make the erroneous conclusion that sux is still better because it has a shorter duration of paralysis. In emergent airways, short paralysis is not a good thing.

Bottom line: Ignore the conclusions, rocuronium at a proper dose (1.2mg/kg) is a great paralytic for RSI.

One of my favorite myths to rant about – and apparently some very smart people out there agree with me

Swaminathan A, Otterness K, Milne K, Rezaie S. The Safety of Topical Anesthetics in the Treatment of Corneal Abrasions: A Review. The Journal of emergency medicine. 49(5):810-5. 2015. 26281814

I spoke about topical anesthetics for corneal abrasions at rounds earlier this year. (My handout from that talk can be found here.) This is a systematic review looking at the same topic. They identify 2 emergency department studies and 4 ophthalmology studies (after a procedure called photorefractive keratectomy – essentially a iatrogenic corneal abrasion) that prospectively evaluated the use of topical anesthetics for corneal abrasions.  All the studies were small. Topical anesthetics resulted in no complications. Overall, topical anesthetics appear to be effective, with clinically and statistically significant pain score reduction in 5 of 6 studies.

Bottom line: Treat your patient’s pain. A short course of topical anesthetic is probably safe and almost certainly effective for corneal abrasions.

Acute HIV – a diagnosis I am probably missing

Rosenberg ES, Caliendo AM, Walker BD. Acute HIV infection among patients tested for mononucleosis. The New England journal of medicine. 340(12):969. 1999. PMID: 10094651 [free full text]

Early HIV infection presents as a mononucleosis-like infection, making it very difficult to diagnose. Although I generally dislike using the emergency department for public health screening, if HIV is not diagnosed during this initial stage, many years may pass before it is diagnosed, not only hurting the patient, but also putting their many contacts at risk. This is a letter to the editor describing a study where they retrospectively took all blood samples that were sent for epstein barr virus at Massachusetts General Hospital and tested them for HIV RNA. They found that 1.2% (7/563) has an acute HIV infection and another 0.8% (4/563) had chronic HIV.

Bottom line: This is well above the threshold for screening for HIV. Perhaps monospot and HIV testing should be paired?

1 more: Non specific viral illness or acute HIV?

Pincus JM, Crosby SS, Losina E, King ER, LaBelle C, Freedberg KA. Acute human immunodeficiency virus infection in patients presenting to an urban urgent care center. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 37(12):1699-704. 2003. PMID: 14689354 [free full text]

Sticking with the same topic, these authors tested all patients presenting with viral symptoms and 1 or more HIV risk factors at their urban urgent care centre for HIV. (They were very broad with their HIV risk factors: any sexual contact, any injection drug use, any crack use, or any alcohol use in the last 2 months.) Of the 499 patients included, 5 (1.0%) were diagnosed with an acute HIV infection and another 6 (1.2%) were diagnosed with chronic HIV. They did not have any false positives.

Bottom line: Depending on your work environment, it may be worth screening for HIV in patients with viral illnesses.

It’s all about that aVL

Bischof JE, Worrall C, Thompson P, Marti D, Smith SW. ST depression in lead aVL differentiates inferior ST-elevation myocardial infarction from pericarditis. The American journal of emergency medicine. 2015. PMID: 26542793

Is that Inferior ST elevation indicative of STEMI? Or is it pericarditis? aVL might hold the key. This is a retrospective look at 3 different groups. Of 154 patients with a final diagnosis of inferior STEMI, all 154 had some degree of ST depression in aVL. Of the 49 patients with pericarditis, 49 had some degree of inferior ST elevation, but none had any ST depression in aVL. There was a third cohort with subtle inferior ST elevation (less than 1mm) but confirmed vessel occlusion on cath. Of these 54 patients, 49 had ST depression in aVL. The authors conclude that ST depression is highly sensitive for inferior STEMI and specific for pericarditis.

Bottom line: I will certainly look at aVL, but would love to see this repeated prospectively

If you want to read more about this and see some example ECGs, check out the blog post by senior author Dr Steve Smith: http://hqmeded-ecg.blogspot.ca/2015/11/new-paper-published-on-significance-of.html

 

Cold – the pure green coffee (ask Dr. Oz) of the brain

Andrews PJ, Sinclair HL, Rodriguez A. Hypothermia for Intracranial Hypertension after Traumatic Brain Injury. The New England journal of medicine. 2015. PMID: 26444221 [free full text]

Another in the cold brain is not healthy brain category. This is a multicentre, randomized controlled trial of 387 adult patients (out of 2498 screened patients) with traumatic brain injury and persistently elevated ICP after sedation, elevation of the head of the bed, and mechanical ventilation. They were randomized to either get or not get hypothermia (target between 32 and 35 degrees Celsius for 48 hours.) The trial was stopped early for harm. Their primary outcome (neuro status based on the extended Glasgow outcome scale) was worse in the hypothermia group (OR 1.53 95%CI 1.02-2.30). Mortality was also worse (OR 1.45 95%CI 1.01-2.10). The biggest problem with the study was that they included patients up to 10 days after injury, which could just be too late for the magical power of cold to work.

However, I don’t think we should find this too surprising. Hypothermia has been tried for many conditions, including TBI, in the past with limited success. The general failure of hypothermia is one of the reasons to remain highly skeptical of those two small, biased trials that indicated that it worked in cardiac arrest. It may be reasonable to continue using hypothermia for the time being, but if anyone gets around to actually repeating the hypothermia versus placebo trial in cardiac arrest, we shouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to have no effect.

Bottom line: No hypothermia for trauma

Dual antiplatelets for stroke/TIA?

Wang Y, Pan Y, Zhao X. Clopidogrel With Aspirin in Acute Minor Stroke or Transient Ischemic Attack (CHANCE) Trial: One-Year Outcomes. Circulation. 132(1):40-6. 2015. PMID: 25957224

This is one of those trials that will get talked about, but I worry we will over apply the results. This is a large multicenter randomized trial in which 5170 Chinese patients with high risk TIA or minor CVA were randomized to either clopidogrel 75mg daily for 3 months plus aspirin 75 mg daily for 21 days or aspirin 75 mg daily for 3 months. The primary outcome of stroke at 1 year occurred in 10.6% of the combo group as compared to 14.0% of the aspirin alone group (hazard ratio, 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.65-0.93; P=0.006). Bleeding was the same in both groups. I think there are a few important caveats. First, you should question the generalizability of these results to your patients unless you work in China, because the rates of smoking in China are unlike those anywhere else in the world. Second, it is unlikely that the combination of ASA and clopidogrel has the same bleeding rates as ASA alone. That doesn’t fit well with previous studies or general experience. This should remind us that RCTs are usually not well designed to identify harms and will often over estimate the benefit to harm ratio.

Bottom line: I would not be changing my practice to include dual antiplatelet therapy based on this study alone.

Great ultrasound tip – try using both probes for IUP

Tabbut M, Harper D, Gramer D, Jones R. High-frequency linear transducer improves detection of an intrauterine pregnancy in first trimester ultrasound. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Article in Press. PMID:

Traditionally, we are taught to use a curvilinear abdominal probe when performing transabdominal ultrasound to detect first trimester pregnancy. This study looked at adding the high frequency linear transducer after failure to identify IUP with the standard transducer. Of 81 initial scans, 27 patients did not have an IUP visualised with the curvilinear probe. Of those, 9 (33%) were found to have an IUP by using the linear probe.

Bottom line: It’s probably worth trying the linear probe if you can’t see an IUP with the curvilinear.

Cricoid pressure: the evidence?

Algie CM, Mahar RK, Tan HB, Wilson G, Mahar PD, Wasiak J. Effectiveness and risks of cricoid pressure during rapid sequence induction for endotracheal intubation. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews. 11:CD011656. 2015. PMID: 26578526

This is a Cochrane review designed to look for any RCT evidence of the value of cricoid pressure in either emergent or elective airways. The review really says nothing of value, because there is no evidence to review. So why include it? Because sometimes it’s important to know that there is no evidence to review. If anyone ever gets too dogmatic on either side of the cricoid pressure debate, they should probably be ignored.

Bottom line: There is no evidence supporting the use of cricoid pressure. I abandoned it a long time ago, but I would be happy to see an RCT done to confirm or contradict my current practice.  

Sex is better than flomax!

Doluoglu OG, Demirbas A, Kilinc MF. Can Sexual Intercourse Be an Alternative Therapy for Distal Ureteral Stones? A Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Study. Urology. 86(1):19-24. 2015. PMID: 26142575

By now, everyone should know that tamsulosin does not help patients with kidney stones, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on our patients. Is there anything else we can do to help? In this randomized, controlled study 75 adult patients with nephrolithiasis were randomized to either 1) being asked to have sex at least 3-4 times a week, 2) tamsulosin 0.4mg a day, or 3) usual care. There were no placebos (although if you can come up with a placebo version of sex I want to hear about it.) The mean time to stone expulsion was only 10 days (95%CI 4.2-15.8 days) in the sex group, versus 16.6 (95%CI 8.1-25.1 days) with tamsulosin and 18 (95%CI 15.5-23.5 days) with usual care (p=0.0001). I foresee a large number of men looking for medical notes explaining this therapy to their wives. Perhaps there may even be a few malingerers without stones looking to get this prescription?

Bottom line: Sex is good

When is dementia not dementia?

Djukic M, Wedekind D, Franz A, Gremke M, Nau R. Frequency of dementia syndromes with a potentially treatable cause in geriatric in-patients: analysis of a 1-year interval. European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience. 265(5):429-38. 2015. PMID: 25716929

Dementia is a horrible diagnosis that we can’t do anything about. But is it always? In this retrospective review of patients admitted to hospital with dementia, the authors searched for reversible causes. Of the patients previously diagnosed with dementia, the authors were able identify a potentially reversible cause in 23%. Of the newly diagnosed dementia, 31% had potentially reversible causes. The common reversible causes included low B12, depression, alcoholism, and normal pressure hydrocephalus. I wouldn’t hang my hat on any of the numbers, given the retrospective nature of the trial, but this should serve as a reminder that we might be able to help some of these patients. If you can reverse dementia, that is a true save.

Bottom line: Some dementia is reversible. These causes should be searched for.

Dikembe Mutombo is wagging his finger – Block!

Riddell M, Ospina M, Holroyd-Leduc JM. Use of Femoral Nerve Blocks to Manage Hip Fracture Pain among Older Adults in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review. CJEM. 2015. PMID: 26354332

My appraisal may be biased because I love nerve blocks, especially when I can do them with an ultrasound. This is a systematic review of randomized control trials asking the question: does the use of a femoral nerve block reduce pain, opioid use, delirium, or improve function in adults over 65 with an acute hip fracture. They found 7 RCTs covering a total of 224 patients – so the studies were small. Also, only one trial was placebo controlled. The remainder compared the nerve block to opioids. The authors appropriately did not perform a meta-analysis, as the studies were heterogenous, so a single numerical summary is not possible. The best summary is that the nerve block group consistently had both statistically and clinically significant reduction in their pain scores as compared to placebo, used less opioid, and had fewer complications.

Bottom line: Nerve blocks work great for hip fractures. We should be using these.

From Dikembe Mutombo to Mark Spitz

Browne KM, Murphy O, Clover AJ. Should we advise patients with sutures not to swim? BMJ (Clinical research ed.). 348:g3171. 2014. PMID: 24859900

I always find it a little frustrating when my non-medical friends ask me questions about medicine that seem really simple, but that I honestly can’t answer. What exactly did I learn in all those years of school? The most recent question was: “when can I started swimming again after getting stitches?” This is a review, if you can call a search that unearthed only a single case report a review, trying to answer that question. Yes, apparently in the entire medical literature there is a single reported case of a wound infection that occurred after swimming – and that was in a hospital rehab pool which is probably more likely to be colonized with strange bugs than your average swimming pool. The authors try to shape this into a practical answer, but I think the best answer we can give is “we don’t know”. Early showering after surgery has been shown to be safe, so maybe you could extrapolate from that.

Bottom line: There is much in medicine that we simply don’t know

Which is more important: rinsing your dishes before they go in the dishwasher, or rinsing out the inside of an abscess?

Chinnock B, Hendey GW. Irrigation of Cutaneous Abscesses Does Not Improve Treatment Success. Annals of emergency medicine. 2015. PMID: 26416494

I was never taught to irrigate abscesses in residency. It was only this year that I discovered that this has been suggested by numerous guidelines. But not so fast. This is a non-blinded RCT of 209 patients with cutaneous abscesses randomized to irrigation or no irrigation. There was no difference in the need for further treatment (I&D, antibiotic change, or admission) at 30 days between the 2 groups (15% vs 13%). Unfortunately a huge number of these patients were put on antibiotics (91% in the irrigation and 73% in the no irrigation group), which we know are unnecessary in most abscesses, but contaminate the results here.

Bottom line: This wasn’t common practice where I trained and we never saw many bouncebacks. I won’t start irrigating abscesses based on this.

Should the Bee Gees pause for a breath (at 30:2)?

Nichol G, Leroux B, Wang H. Trial of Continuous or Interrupted Chest Compressions during CPR. The New England journal of medicine. 2015. PMID: 26550795 [free full text]

“Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man. No time to talk… Ah,ha,ha,ha, stayin’ alive”. This is a large randomized controlled trial of 23,711 adult patients with out of hospital cardiac arrest comparing the standard 30:2 ratio of chest compressions to rescue breaths, to continuous chest compressions at 100/min with 10 asynchronous breaths a minute. The primary outcome of survival to hospital discharge was identical, 9.0% in the continuous chest compression group and 9.7% in the 30:2 group. Neurologically intact survival was 7.0% and 7.7% respectively. The biggest issue with the data is that everyone got extremely high quality CPR, and the compression fraction was almost identical in both groups, so it would have been difficult to demonstrate any difference.

Bottom line: Personally, I like continuous compressions with asynchronous breaths more, but this trial supports whatever you are comfortable with as long as you are doing high quality CPR.

A quick and easy rule out blood test for aortic dissection? Get real

Asha SE, Miers JW. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of D-dimer as a Rule-out Test for Suspected Acute Aortic Dissection. Annals of emergency medicine. 66(4):368-78. 2015. PMID: pubmed

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis looking to determine the diagnostic accuracy of D-dimer as a rule out test of aortic dissection. In total they found 5 studies including a total of 1600 patients. My first point of concern is that 1035 of those patients came from a single study, which could potentially dominate a meta-analysis, and that study was not designed to test the accuracy of D-dimer. In fact, the study enrolled 1455 patients, but only 1035 were counted in this meta-analysis, because the other patients never even had a D-dimer drawn. The results they present are pretty impressive, with a pooled sensitivity of 98% (95%CI 96-100%), specificity of 42% (95%CI 39-45%), negative likelihood ratio of 0.05 and positive likelihood ratio of 2.11. However, I would be very careful interpreting those results. Not only are the majority of the patients from a registry where D-dimer didn’t have to be drawn, but these were almost all patients admitted to CCUs, so very different from our ED population. Finally, although you would be using this test to try to avoid CTs, the poor specificity in a lower risk population could actually paradoxically lead to increased CT usage, much like D-dimer for PE.

Bottom line: This study isn’t enough to support D-dimer to rule out aortic dissection in the ED.

“Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error” – Moliere

Fanari Z, Abraham N, Kolm P. Aggressive Measures to Decrease “Door to Balloon” Time and Incidence of Unnecessary Cardiac Catheterization: Potential Risks and Role of Quality Improvement. Mayo Clinic proceedings. 2015. PMID: 26549506

An important lesson in unintended consequences. We know that short door to balloon times are important for STEMI patients. This is a study from a single hospital where they instituted a number of measures to decrease the door to balloon time. And it worked! Well – they managed to get the door to balloon time decreased by 15 minutes, which is excellent. However, it’s important to measure patient oriented outcomes and in this cohort the false positive STEMI rate rose from 7.7% to 16% and there was an increased mortality in this false positive group.

Bottom line: Inappropriate benchmarks can result in physicians rushing, more errors, and patient harms.

Don’t let an endotracheal tube make your patient worse

Kim WY, Kwak MK, Ko BS. Factors associated with the occurrence of cardiac arrest after emergency tracheal intubation in the emergency department. PloS one. 9(11):e112779. 2014. PMID: 25402500 [free full text]

Emergency physicians love procedures and intubation is one of our favorite. Sometimes this leads to us being a little overzealous about intubating very early, when an immediate airway is not necessary. This is a case control study of 41 critically ill adult patients that had a cardiac arrest after intubation (out of a total of 2404 critically ill patients who were intubated – or 1.7%.) Pre-Intubation hypotension (a systolic blood pressues ≤ 90) was independently associated with post-intubation arrest (OR 3.67 95%CI 1.58-8.55.) The case control design may not provide precise numbers, but I think this is a good reminder that some patients need good resuscitation before we attempt intubation.

Bottom line: Resuscitation before intubation in hypotensive patients

Cheesy Joke of the Month

There are two cows in a field. The first cow turns to the second and asks, “did you hear about the outbreak of mad cow disease?” The second cow responds: “Good thing I am a helicopter.”

 

#FOAMed of the month

Every month this section could probably just be filled with my favorite talks from SMACC. I will try to include some different FOAM in coming months, but these talks were so go that even though I listened to them live, I have listened to them all again at home. This is why I have been telling everyone who will listen they should join me in Dublin in June. The first tickets sold out very fast, but some more will go on sale December 1st at 5pm EST (if my math is right.)

For now, these talks were amazing:

Lessons from the Princess Bride (Amal Mattu)

When to stop resuscitation (Roger Harris)

What is a good death (Ashley Shreves)

Crack the chest. Get crucified. (John Hinds) – I know I have recommended this one before, but it is worth more than one watch.

Dogmalysis and pseudoaxioms (David Newman)

Bouncing back after tragedy (Rob Rogers)

Educational theory for the clinician (Jonathon Sherbino)

 

EBM Lecture Handout #2: Topical Anaesthetics fo Corneal Abrasions

A summary of the evidence supporting the use of topical anesthetics for pain control in simple corneal abrasion after emergency department discharge

Your patient’s child poked him in the eye, and now he is in the most excruciating pain of his life. After a thorough eye exam, you determine he has a simple corneal abrasion. Your patient is ready for discharge, and has actually been pain free ever since you but 2 drops of tetracaine in the affected eye. “Hey, can you give me some of those amazing drops? They really worked!” You look down at this poor soul, and for some reason you say “no”.

Why don’t we use topical anesthetics for pain control in patients with simple corneal abrasions?

Continue reading “EBM Lecture Handout #2: Topical Anaesthetics fo Corneal Abrasions”

Articles of the month (March 2015)

A monthly collection of the most interesting emergency medical literature I have encountered

Magnesium the wonder drug, now for migraines

Shahrami A et al. Comparison of therapeutic effects of magnesium sulfate vs. dexamethasone/metoclopramide on alleviating acute migraine headache. J Emerg Med 2015; 48(1): 69-76. PMID 25278139

In this RCT, they compared IV magnesium (1 gram) to the combination of metoclopramide 10mg IV and dexamethasome 8mg IV. Magnesium was more effective at 20min, 1 and 2 hours. I would note, that although metoclopramide is what we generally have to use now because of drug shortages or silly rules, prochlorperazine (Stemetil) and droperidol are both better for migraine. Also, previous studies of metoclopramide in migraine have used a 20mg dose, although 10mg is what tends to be ordered.

Bottom line: Intravenous magnesium might be a useful tool in the treatment of migraines

 

This PROMISEs to be the biggest paper of the month

The ProMISe trial. Mouncey et al. Trial of Early, Goal-Directed Resuscitation for Septic Shock. NEJM. 2015 (Ahead of print). PMID: 25776532

This is the third and final large trial of early goal directed therapy for septic shock, and shockingly it tells us pretty much the same thing the first two did: EGDT adds nothing to usual care. This is an open label, multi-center RCT from the UK with a total of 1260 patients. Patients were randomized to receive the classic EGDT protocol or ‘usual care’. There was no difference in mortality, (29% at 90 days). Of course, ‘usual care’ may look a lot more like EGDT than it used to.

Bottom line: Septic patients need antibiotics, fluids, and most importantly someone to care about them. Ditch the high tech stuff.

 

Emergency doctors are ECG experts, we don’t need a second opinion next week

Proano L et al. Cardiology electrocardiogram overreads rarely influence patient care outcome. Am Jour Emerg Med 2014;32(11):1311-14. PMID: 25200503

This is a retrospective review at a single teaching hospital over 21 months, with 38,490 ECGs reviewed. Of the 16,011 patients that were discharged, 22 patients required follow up for discordant readings (0.1%). Of those 22, after review only 2 were determined to require a change in management. The remainder were considered ‘non specific’ or the ED doc turned out to be right. Of the 2 with changed management, one was for ‘possible ACS’ who ultimately had a completely negative workup. The other was a missed atrial flutter, but nothing changed about their management except also getting a negative workup.

Bottom line: Having cardiology over read ED ECGs results in a change of management in somewhere between 0 and 0.01% of patients (and adds a bunch of false positives).

 

We don’t listen to our own literature (ACLS still doesn’t work)

Sanghavi BS et al. Outcomes After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Treated by Basic vs Advanced Life Support. JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(2):196-204. PMID: 25419698

We already know this, because it has been over a decade since OPALS (in Ontario) proved that ACLS doesn’t work. This is an observational cohort study of American medicare patients with out of hospital cardiac arrest, based on whether they were treated by an ACLS or BLS crew. Survival to hospital discharge was better with BLS (13.1% vs 9.2%). Survival at 90 days was better with BLS (8.0% vs 5.4%).

Bottom line: ACLS doesn’t work. Stop wasting time with IVs and drugs. And most importantly, can we please remove any kind of ACLS training from my hospital credentialing requirements?

 

Related: Less is also more for airway management in cardiac arrest

McMullan J et al. Airway management and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcome in the CARES registry. Resuscitation 2014, 85(5):617-622. PMID: 24561079

This is a retrospective registry review of 10,691 out of hospital cardiac arrests that demonstrated that patients that did not have advanced airways placed during the initial resuscitation were more likely to survive to hospital discharge with good neurological outcomes (OR 4.24 95% CI 3.26-5.20). The use of supraglottic airways was associated with worse outcomes than endotracheal intubation. Of course, these are just associations in a very complex scenario with multiple confounders.

Bottom line: Use good technique and provide slow ventilations with a bag valve mask, unless you believe there is a good reason to do something more advanced.

 

Patients don’t understand us

Shif Y et al. What CPR means to surrogate decision makers of ICU patients. Resuscitation 2015 (In print). PMID: 25711518

This is qualitative research on communication and understanding of CPR by surrogate decision makers in the ICU. (I love this stuff, but probably mostly because my master’s was based in qualitative research and communication. Realistically, this study probably just states the obvious.) Less than half of surrogate decision makers identified cardiac arrest as the indication for CPR. Only 8% could identify the major components of CPR (although the technical details probably don’t matter that much.) Mostly importantly, 72% thought that the survival rate post CPR is greater than 75%.

Bottom line: It takes a lot of time, but we really do need to teach our patients about medicine.

 

Ketamine will not make your head explode (although, if my head did explode, I would probably be grateful to be in the K-hole)

Cohen L et al. The effect of ketamine on intracranial and cerebral perfusion pressure and health outcomes: a systematic review. Annals of Emergency Medicine 2015; 65(1):45-51. PMID: 25064742

This systematic review found a total of 10 studies, all in the ICU or OR as they were actually measuring ICPs. Mostly ketamine didn’t change ICP or CPP. In two studies, ICP actually decreased with ketamine. In two studies it did go up, but by 2-4 mmHg, so clinically meaningless. There were no changes in neurological outcomes, ICU length of stay, or mortality.

Bottom line: Ketamine is a wonder drug that can do anything, possibly even solve our boarding crisis, so go ahead and use it whenever you want.

 

Also, tetracaine is not going to melt your eyeballs

Waldman N et al. Topical tetracaine used for 24 h is safe and rated highly effective by patients for the treatment of pain caused by corneal abrasions: a double-blind, randomized clinical trial. Acad Emerg Med 2014; 21:374-382. PMID: 24730399

This is a prospective double blind RCT in which patients with corneal abrasions were allowed to use tetracaine 1% q30min PRN for pain after simple corneal abrasions (versus saline placebo). This is not the first study to look at this, and the dogma is based on a handful of ridiculous case reports. There were no complications (to be fair 116 patient trial is not big enough to be sure it is safe.) It is a weird trial, because pain scores didn’t go down, but patients were more satisfied with their care if they were given tetracaine.

Bottom line: Patients with painful conditions deserve good pain control. If I had a corneal abrasion, you can be sure I would be using a topical anesthetic.

 

One day we may not radiate our patients at all – apparently you can use ultrasound to look for bowel obstruction?

Jang TB etl al. Bedside ultrasonography for the detection of small bowel obstruction in the emergency department. Emerg Med J. 2011;28(8):676-8. PMID: 20732861

A prospective study of 76 patients with suspected SBO, all of who had a CT scan done. Residents were given a 10 training session on using bedside ultrasound to assess for bowel obstruction. The bedside ultrasound had a sensitivity of 91% and a specificity of 84% compared to the CT gold standard. Compare that to abdominal plain films, which had a sensitivity of 46% and a specificity of 67%.

Bottom line: Ultrasound is much better than plain films for the assessment of SBO.

 

Yet another reason not to order urine tox screens

Felton at al. 13-Year-Old Girl With Recurrent, Episodic, Persistent Vomiting: Out of the Pot and Into the Fire. Pediatrics 2015 (Ahead of print). PMID: 25733759

OK, this is only a case report and only gets in because I have an axe to grind. I hate urine toxicology screens and believe they should never be ordered in the ED. But it does raise an interesting tidbit to keep in mind: apparently pantoprozole can cause a false positive urine tox screen for marijuana.

Bottom line: Never rely on a urine tox screen.

 

NPO time irrelevant for procedural sedation

Godwin SA et al. Clinical policy: procedural sedation and analgesia in the emergency department. Ann Emerg Med. 2014;63(2):247-58. PMID: 24438649

As part of the ACEP clinical policy process, they did a systematic review. They found 5 studies that cover thousands of patients, and found no evidence that fasting decreased aspiration or other adverse events. The official policy is “Level B: Do not delay procedural sedation in adults or pediatrics in the ED based on fasting time. Preprocedural fasting for any duration has not demonstrated a reduction in the risk of emesis or aspiration when administering procedural sedation and analgesia.”

Bottom line: Just make sure they actually take the Doritos out of their mouth before starting.

 

GCS 8, just wait

Duncan R and Thakore S. Decreased Glasgow Coma Scale does not mandate endotracheal intubation in the emergency department. J Emerg Med 2009;37(4):451-5. PMID: 19272743

An older paper that came across my desk that I think is worth including because I know practice varies wildly in this regard, and I have debated this point with multiple folks. This is a prospective study of 73 overdose patients with decreased LOC who were watched, not intubated (GCS ranged from 3 to 14). No patient with a GCS under 8 worsened, required intubation, or aspirated.

Bottom line: GCS under 8 shouldn’t be an automatic intubation in tox patients

 

Best way to avoid the pain of an ABG – don’t do one. Second best way: use an insulin needle?

Ibrahim I et al. Arterial Puncture Using Insulin Needle Is Less Painful Than With Standard Needle: A Randomized Crossover Study. Acad Emerg Med 2015 (Ahead of print). PMID: 25731215

Although I don’t think ABGs are very helpful most of the time, you might want to calculate an A-a gradient or something some day. This was a randomized study of healthy volunteers comparing a standard 23 gauge to an insulin needle for arterial stabs. Not surprisingly, both pain and complications were lower with the smaller needle. However, hemolysis went up, so not great if you really want a K – but why do you want to know the arterial K?

Bottom line: If you really feel like doing an ABG, use a smaller needle.

 

Infomercials in the Lancet?

Goldstein JN et al. Four-factor prothrombin complex concentrate versus plasma for rapid vitamin K antagonist reversal in patients needing urgent surgical or invasive interventions: a phase 3b, open-label, non-inferiority, randomised trial. Lancet 2015 (ahead of print). PMID: 25728933

This is an open label RCT of 181 patients comparing PCC (Beriplex) to FFP before an ‘urgent surgery or procedure’. Based on rated ‘effective hemostasis’ being achieved in 90% of the PCC group and 75% of the FFP group, the authors conclude that PCC is superior to FFP. Sadly, this article appears to have been written directly by the drug company (if you read the funding statement), had protocol changes as it went, and relies on reporting of a surrogate end point. Despite all that, the treatments were actually identical. Difference in surgical blood loss between the two groups: 12 ml. Total number of units of blood transfused – identical in both groups.

Bottom line: This trial will be used to push an expensive medication, but it should be interpreted as the opposite: never use PCC just to get someone to surgery.

 

Hepatic encephalopathy is treated with diarrhea (lactulose is not special)

Rahimi RS et al. Lactulose vs polyethylene glycol 3350-electrolyte solution for treatment of overt hepatic encephalopathy: the HELP randomized clinical trial. JAMA Intern Med 2014; 174(11):1727-1733. PMID: 25243839

This is a small RCT comparing PEG 3350 to lactulose for patients with hepatic encephalopathy. PEG 3350 resulted in more rapid resolution of symptoms than lactulose.

Bottom line: PEG 3350 might be better, but certainly isn’t worse than lactulose for the treatment of hepatic encephalpathy.

 

Your kid is allergy prone? Feed him peanuts

Du Toit et al. Randomized trial of peanut consumption in infants at risk for peanut allergy. NEJM 2015; 372:802-813. PMID: 25705822

This is the RCT to show anyone who ever tells you that there some are things we just can’t study. They took 640 children at risk of developing peanut allergy because they already had an egg allergy or severe eczema and randomized them to either eat or not a peanut based snack. The results are relatively astounding. If you didn’t have a positive skin test at the beginning of the study, being exposed to peanuts decreased your chance of developing a peanut allergy by 12% (NNT = 8). If you had a positive skin test at the outset, being exposed to peanut protein decreased your allergy rate by 25% (NNT =4)!

Bottom line: More of a general interest than emergency medicine specific paper. This is strong support for the cleanliness hypothesis of increasing allergies – if you want to avoid allergy, increase antigen exposure in kids.

Cheesy Joke of the Month

I went to a zoo recently, and the only animal there was a dog…

It was a shitzu