Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Multicenter Study
Negative predictive value of acetaminophen concentrations within four hours of ingestion.
The objective was to ascertain whether acetaminophen (APAP) concentrations less than 100 μg/mL obtained between 1 and 4 hours after acute ingestion accurately predict a nontoxic 4-hour concentration. ⋯ An APAP concentration of <100 μg/mL obtained between 1 and 4 hours after ingestion has a high NPV for excluding toxic ingestion. We do not recommend reliance on concentrations obtained between 1 and 4 hours to exclude toxicity, because of a potential false-negative rate of 6.5%.
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Observational Study
Intranasal Ketamine for Analgesia in the Emergency Department: A Prospective Observational Series.
The objective was to examine the feasibility, effectiveness, and adverse effect profile of intranasal ketamine for analgesia in emergency department (ED) patients. ⋯ Intranasal ketamine reduced VAS pain scores to a clinically significant degree in 88% of ED patients in this series. Adverse effects were minor and transient. Intranasal ketamine may have a role in the provision of effective, expeditious analgesia to ED patients.
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The anticoagulant dabigatran has no reversal agent and may cause life-threatening bleeding in patients with trauma or closed-space hemorrhage. Intravenous lipid emulsion (ILE) is thought to create a lipid compartment in serum that sequesters lipophilic drugs. Dabigatran is lipophilic, and its anticoagulant effects are concentration dependent. The study objective was to determine if ILE therapy reverses dabigatran's anticoagulant effects. ⋯ The anticoagulant effects of dabigatran are not reversed with ILE therapy. Although ILE itself significantly prolonged bleeding times, when administered to dabigatran-anticoagulated rats, bleeding times did not change significantly. There may be a complex interaction of ILE with dabigatran that this study was not able to elucidate.