Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2024
Bedside urine testing for fentanyl in self-reported heroin users in a tertiary Brisbane emergency department.
To determine if patients presenting to our toxicology unit following self-reported heroin use had positive urine immunoassay testing for fentanyl or its analogues. ⋯ In patients presenting to our toxicology unit in Brisbane, we did not find any cases where the urine of patients self-reporting heroin exposure tested positive for fentanyl or its analogues.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2024
Rethinking the tiered trauma team response: A case-series study in a regional trauma centre.
To reduce perceived unnecessary resource use, we modified our tiered trauma response. If a patient was not physiologically compromised, surgical registrar attendance was not mandated. We investigated the effect of this change on missed injury, unplanned representation to ED, diagnostic imaging rates and staff satisfaction. ⋯ The removal of the surgical registrar from the initial trauma standby response did not result in any adverse events, reduced admissions, pathology and imaging, but resulted in an increased ED LOS and time to surgical review.
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Vitamin B17 tablets are sold (online) as an alternative cancer therapy medication. Its use however is not benign, given that it is metabolised into hydrogen cyanide. We aimed to measure the number of calls received by the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre (NSW PIC) regarding Amygdalin exposures. ⋯ There is a significant burden of concern generated from the misuse of cyanogenic glycoside products for cancer prevention and treatment, which can result in hospital admission carrying significant health risk and expenditure.