Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Comparative Study
Venous pH can safely replace arterial pH in the initial evaluation of patients in the emergency department.
This study aims to determine the extent of correlation of arterial and venous pH with a view to identifying whether venous samples can be used as an alternative to arterial values in the clinical management of selected patients in the emergency department. ⋯ Venous pH estimation shows a high degree of correlation and agreement with the arterial value, with acceptably narrow 95% limits of agreement. Venous pH estimation is an acceptable substitute for arterial measurement and may reduce risks of complications both for patients and health care workers.
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A previously unreported cause of acute tongue swelling is presented and the airway issues discussed. Cases with different aetiology have been sporadically published however the consequent, and sometimes fatal, airway obstructions have been dealt with somewhat variably. The aetiogy of acute tongue swelling and modern emergency airway algorithms are discussed with reference to the literature.
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A literature search was undertaken for evidence of the effect of succinylcholine (SCH) on the intracranial pressure (ICP) of patients with acute brain injury and whether pretreatment with a defasciculating dose of competitive neuromuscular blocker is beneficial in this patient group. The authors could find no definitive evidence that SCH caused a rise in ICP in patients with brain injury. ⋯ There is level 2 evidence that SCH caused an increase in ICP for patients undergoing neurosurgery for brain tumours with elective anaesthesia and that pretreatment with defasciculating doses of neuromuscular blockers reduced such increases. It is unknown if this affects neurological outcome for this patient group.