The American journal of emergency medicine
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Identifying acute pyelonephritis (APN) with early obstructive uropathy is clinically important in the emergency department (ED) because obstructive urolithiasis is an independent risk factor for inpatient death, prolonged hospitalization, and failure of outpatient APN therapy. Furthermore, diagnosis of an early obstructive uropathy can be difficult when based solely on clinical findings. Clinicians may assume the cause of the patient's symptoms to be APN alone, without considering the concurrent presence of an obstructing stone. ⋯ In this case, hydronephrosis on bedside ultrasound examination was an indirect marker of a distal ureteral obstruction. By detecting the presence of hydronephrosis in patients with APN, emergency physicians may dramatically increase their ability to identify those patients that need further radiographic investigation and ultimately decrease the rate of outpatient treatment failure. Further surveillance data are needed to determine the statistical characteristics of this novel screening test and if routine renal evaluation of all patients with APN is warranted.
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We present the case of a 35-year-old woman with hypotension and abdominal tenderness after acute vomiting and syncope. The patient had been breast-feeding since the birth of a child 8 months earlier, was not yet menstruating, and felt that she was having a reaction to sushi. ⋯ Often, patients are too unstable or dehydrated to provide a urine sample; and serum human chorionic gonadotropin testing may be difficult to obtain in a timely fashion. This use of the point-of-care urine qualitative test has not been previously described and may be valuable in cases where rapid diagnosis is critical.
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Drug treatment can be effective in community-based settings, but drug users tend to underuse these treatment options and instead seek services in emergency departments (EDs) and other acute care settings. The goals of this study were to describe prevalence and correlates of drug-related ED visits. ⋯ Significant variability exists for risk of ED use for different types of drugs. These findings can help inform where links between EDs with local treatment programs can be formed to provide preventive care and injury-prevention interventions to reduce the risk of subsequent ED visits.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Continuous positive airway pressure for cardiogenic pulmonary edema: a randomized study.
The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to determine the immediate and delayed effects of noninvasive ventilation for patients in acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema (ACPE) in addition to aggressive usual care in a medical prehospital setting. ⋯ In the prehospital setting, in spite of its potential advantages for patients in ACPE, CPAP may not be preferred to a strict optimal intravenous treatment.
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A 75-year-old male patient suffered a chest degloving injury when he fell on his back and was run over by a small farm tractor he was pulling. At the time of patient admission, the paradoxical motion of the right chest wall was remarkable; and he had an open fracture of the right humerus, a dislocation of the right ankle, and a laceration of the right forearm. ⋯ Because the right flail chest was severe and there was a large amount of air leakage that continued under positive-pressure ventilation for pneumatic stabilization, we performed surgical fixation of the ribs and repaired the lung injury on the fifth hospital day. The patient's postoperative course was uneventful.