The American journal of emergency medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Whole-body cooling effectiveness of cold intravenous saline following exercise hyperthermia: a randomized trial.
In some athletic, occupational, military and emergency settings, cold intravenous (IV) fluids are used to facilitate whole-body cooling in an effort to treat heat illness. This treatment has anecdotal support, but currently lacks evidence supporting it as a whole-body cooling modality. Other modalities may offer superior cooling rates, and thus, patient outcomes following treatment. We sought to evaluate cooling rates of cold-IV normal saline immediately following exercise-induced hyperthermia. ⋯ Emergency medical personnel should adopt treatment protocols that employ documented effective treatments for exertional heat stroke. In isolation, our data casts significant doubt for the use of cold-IV saline infusion for whole-body cooling of hyperthermic individuals.
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Superior vena cava syndrome (SVCS) is a malignancy-related emergency. It is caused by obstruction of blood flow in the superior vena cava (SVC) secondary to intraluminal thrombosis, external compression, or direct invasion of tumor. ⋯ This case report highlights the role of resuscitative TEE in evaluating a hypotensive patient with clinical suspicion of SVCS at the emergency department. TEE performed at the bedside could help to diagnose and demonstrate the pathology causing SVCS in this case. TEE allowed high-quality image acquisition and was able to overcome the limitation of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE). TEE should be considered as an alternative ED imaging modality in the management of SVCS.