Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A Randomized Double Blind Trial of Needle-free Injected Lidocaine Versus Topical Anesthesia for Infant Lumbar Puncture.
Lumbar punctures (LPs) are commonly performed in febrile infants to evaluate for meningitis, and local anesthesia increases the likelihood of LP success. Traditional methods of local anesthesia require injection that may be painful or topical application that is not effective immediately. Recent advances in needle-free jet injection may offer a rapid alternative to these modalities. We compared a needle-free jet-injection system (J-Tip) with 1% buffered lidocaine to topical anesthetic (TA) cream for local anesthesia in infant LPs. ⋯ In a randomized controlled trial of two modalities for local anesthesia in infant LPs, J-Tip was not superior to TA cream as measured by pain control or physiologic changes. Infant LPs performed with J-Tip were twice as likely to be successful.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Topical Tranexamic Acid Compared With Anterior Nasal Packing for Treatment of Epistaxis in Patients Taking Antiplatelet Drugs: Randomized Controlled Trial.
We evaluated the efficacy of topical application of the injectable form of tranexamic acid (TXA) compared with anterior nasal packing (ANP) for the treatment of epistaxis in patients taking antiplatelet drugs (aspirin, clopidogrel, or both) who presented to the emergency department (ED). ⋯ In our study population, epistaxis treatment with topical application of TXA resulted in faster bleeding cessation, less rebleeding at 1 week, shorter ED LOS, and higher patient satisfaction compared with ANP.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Pragmatic Clinical Trial
Impact of a Shared Decision Making Intervention on Health Care Utilization: A Secondary Analysis of the Chest Pain Choice Multicenter Randomized Trial.
Patients at low risk for acute coronary syndrome are frequently admitted for observation and cardiac testing, resulting in substantial burden and cost to the patient and the health care system. ⋯ Shared decision making in low-risk chest pain can lead to decreased diagnostic testing without worsening outcomes measured over 45 days.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Training and Assessing Critical Airway, Breathing and Hemorrhage Control Procedures for Trauma Care: Live Tissue versus Synthetic Models.
Optimal teaching and assessment methods and models for emergency airway, breathing, and hemorrhage interventions are not currently known. The University of Minnesota Combat Casualty Training consortium (UMN CCTC) was formed to explore the strengths and weaknesses of synthetic training models (STMs) versus live tissue (LT) models. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of best in class STMs versus an anesthetized caprine (goat) model for training and assessing seven procedures: junctional hemorrhage control, tourniquet (TQ) placement, chest seal, needle thoracostomy (NCD), nasopharyngeal airway (NPA), tube thoracostomy, and cricothyrotomy (Cric). ⋯ Training on STM or LT did not demonstrate a difference in subsequent performance for five of seven procedures (junctional hemorrhage, TQ, chest seal, NPA, and NCD). Until STMs are developed with improved anthropomorphic and tissue fidelity, there may still be a role for LT for training tube thoracostomy and potentially Cric. For assessment, our STM appears more challenging for TQ and potentially for NCD than LT. For junctional hemorrhage, the increased "skips" with LT may be explained by the differences in anatomic fidelity. While these results begin to uncover the effects of training and assessing these procedures on various models, further study is needed to ascertain how well performance on an STM or LT model translates to the human model.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Ideal Cricoid Pressure Is Biomechanically Impossible During Laryngoscopy.
This study was a prospective, randomized controlled trial of rapid sequence intubation (RSI) with cricoid pressure (CP) within the emergency department (ED). The primary aim of the study was to examine the link between ideal CP and the incidence of aspiration. ⋯ Laryngoscopy provides a counter force to CP, which is negated to facilitate tracheal intubation. The concept that a static 3.060 to 4.075 kg CP could be maintained during laryngoscopy and intubation was rejected by our study. Whether a lower CP range could prevent aspiration during RSI was not explored by this study.