The American journal of emergency medicine
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Comparative Study
Repeated ambulance use by patients with acute alcohol intoxication, seizure disorder, and respiratory illness.
Three chronic conditions were examined--acute alcohol intoxication, seizure disorder, and respiratory illness--to quantify the extent of repetitive emergency medical services (EMS) use in a defined population. Urban EMS system ambulance data from 1992 to 1994 were analyzed for the three designated conditions with respect to transports by condition and individual patient. Analysis by chi2 was used for comparing proportions. ⋯ Acute alcohol intoxication resulted in more repetitive ambulance transports than either seizure disorder or respiratory illness. A small number of patients were responsible for a large number of transports. Focused intervention for patients with high ambulance transport deserves further study.
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This report describes recently treated patients with carotid artery dissection caused by blunt softball injuries, as well as the results of a study of carotid artery trauma in a community. Data obtained through the medical records linkage system used for epidemiologic studies in Olmsted County, MN were used to identify all cases of traumatic internal carotid artery dissection diagnosed from 1987 through 1994. Four patients with traumatic internal carotid artery dissections were identified during the 8-year period under study. ⋯ Both patients had a low carotid bifurcation. These data suggest that internal carotid artery dissections may be underrecognized sequelae of direct softball injuries to the anterolateral neck. A low carotid bifurcation may be a risk factor for such injuries.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Prilocaine-phenylephrine and bupivacaine-phenylephrine topical anesthetics compared with tetracaine-adrenaline-cocaine during repair of lacerations.
The effectiveness of two new topical anesthetics that do not contain cocaine (prilocaine-phenylephrine and bupivacaine-phenylephrine) was compared with that of tetracaine-adrenaline-cocaine (TAC) during laceration repair in children. This study was a prospective, randomized, double-blind trial conducted in the emergency department of a large children's hospital. Participants were 180 children 1 year of age or older with a laceration 5 cm or less in length that required suturing. ⋯ When power analyses were performed using alpha = 0.05 and beta = 0.20, it was possible to detect a difference of 1.3 VAS units for each rater group. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of prilocaine-phenylephrine and bupivacaine-phenylephrine. Prilocaine-phenylephrine statistically outperformed bupivacaine-phenylephrine and offers an effective alternative to TAC during laceration repair in children.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Effect of temperature and pH adjustment of bupivacaine for intradermal anesthesia.
To determine the effects of warming and buffering of 0.5% bupivacaine on the pain associated with intradermal injection and the time of onset of anesthesia, 40 adult volunteers were entered into a randomized, double-blind study conducted at a community teaching hospital. The three-part study compared room temperature (20 degrees) bupivacaine buffered to a pH of 7.1 with the following solutions: buffered bupivacaine warmed to 37 degrees C, unbuffered bupivacaine at room temperature, and unbuffered bupivacaine warmed to 37 degrees C. The same crossover protocol was followed for each part of the study. ⋯ In this model, the latency of action of bupivacaine was not affected by alkalinization. However, warming bupivacaine to 37 degrees C reduced the time of onset to intradermal anesthesia by 12.1 seconds (95% confidence interval, 0.6 to 23.6). These results suggest that warming is more effective than buffering to reduce the pain of infiltration of bupivacaine and the time of onset of intradermal anesthesia.