J Emerg Med
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Multicenter Study
National Early Warning Score Is Modestly Predictive of Care Escalation after Emergency Department-to-Floor Admission.
Decompensation on the medical floor is associated with increased in-hospital mortality. ⋯ This multicenter study found NEWS was superior to the qSOFA score and SI in predicting early, unplanned escalation of care for ED patients admitted to a general medical-surgical floor.
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Case Reports
Pulmonary Embolism Can Be Nauseous: A Case Report and Review of D-Dimer Use in Pediatric Oncology Patients.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a very common presentation in the emergency department (ED). Despite being life-threatening, PE is preventable if diagnosed and managed early, especially in high-risk patients like pediatric oncology patients. A negative d-dimer has a high negative predictive value and can rule out PE in low-risk patients; however, it does not lower post-test probability enough and should be coupled with further diagnostics in high-risk patients. ⋯ We describe the case of a 14-year-old girl known to have acute lymphoblastic leukemia and presented to the ED with persistent nausea and vomiting only, which was exacerbated by exertion. She had previously presented to the ED 1 week earlier for the same complaint, with a nonrevealing physical examination. At that time, the patient was worked up for nausea and vomiting and received symptomatic treatment. An electrocardiogram (ECG) during that presentation showed normal sinus rhythm. During this presentation, ECG showed new ST segment depressions from V1 to V6 in addition to an S1Q3T3 pattern. This, coupled with the exacerbation of her initial symptoms, triggered further investigations. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) of the chest was performed and showed a right lower lobe segmental pulmonary artery embolus. WHY SHOULD AN EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BE AWARE OF THIS?: This case highlights the importance of having a high level of suspicion for PE, especially in pediatric oncology patients and specifically in hematologic malignancies. Although our patient's presentation, examination, and laboratory results were not concerning initially, CTA of the chest showed a PE. We are addressing this particular topic to increase the awareness of emergency physicians of cases like this, as PE can have an unusual presentation and missing such a diagnosis can be fatal.
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In emergency department (ED) chest pain patients, it is believed that the diagnostic accuracy of the electrocardiogram (ECG) for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is higher during ongoing than abated chest pain. ⋯ Our results indicate that ED chest pain patients with ongoing pain at arrival are younger, healthier, and have less ACS and 30-day MACE than patients with abated pain, but that there is no difference in the diagnostic accuracy of the ECG for ACS between the two groups.
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Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has been shown to be a powerful tool that emergency physicians can use to guide resuscitation efforts during cardiac arrest. Currently, there is no standardized curriculum to teach TEE to emergency physicians. ⋯ A TEE training course resulted in a 50% increase in surveyed participants feeling comfortable using TEE in cardiac arrest and a 40% increase in participants scoring ≥80% on a test of knowledge.