The American journal of emergency medicine
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Triage systems are commonly used in emergency departments (ED) to prioritize patients. Laboratory testing is not typically used to help risk-stratify patients at triage. ⋯ POC testing at triage is a helpful adjunct in triage of patients with high-risk ED complaints.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Correlation between capillary and arterial blood gas parameters in an ED.
Sampling from arteries for the analysis of blood gases is a common procedure in emergency departments (ED). The procedure is painful for the patients and causes concern for the medical personnel due to possible complications, such as hematoma, infection, ischemia, and formation of fistula or aneurism. The present study compared the results of capillary and arterial blood gases analyses (CBG and ABG) to emphasizing a less aggressive technique with the fewest complications for this procedure. ⋯ There appear to be strong correlation between samples collected from the finger tip capillaries with the arterial blood samples in relation to the analysis of blood gas.
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Comparative Study
Therapeutic hypothermia application vs standard support care in post resuscitated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients.
Survival after cardiac arrest remains poor, especially when it occurs outside of hospital. In recent years, therapeutic hypothermia has been used to improve outcomes in patients who have experienced cardiac arrest, however, application to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients remains controversial. ⋯ Therapeutic hypothermia can be safely applied to OHCA patients and can improve their outcome. Further large scale studies are needed to verify our results.
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Review Case Reports
Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis presenting with ventricular storm.
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Acute monoarthritis is one of the most common rheumatologic presentations. However, it is clinically difficult to distinguish between an inflamed joint due to crystal-induced arthritis and an inflamed joint due to septic arthritis. Arthrocentesis and synovial fluid analysis are used to differentiate between these 2 conditions. ⋯ Although uncommon, these 2 arthritides can coexist, and presence of crystal does not exclude bacterial arthritis. We reported a case of 85-year-old woman whose synovial fluid contained crystals and was initially diagnosed with crystal-induced arthritis. However, her joint fluid culture subsequently grew Staphylococcus aureus, and she was treated with arthroscopic debridement and antibiotics.