The Resus Room

Head injury worldwide is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Besides prevention there isn't anything that can be done to improve the results from the primary brain injury, there is however a phenomenal amount that can be done to reduce the secondary brain injury that patients suffer, both from a prehospital and in hospital point of view. In the podcast we run through head injuries, all the way from initial classification and investigation, to specifics of treatment including neuro protective anaesthesia and hyperosmolar therapy, to give a sound overview of the management of these patients. As always we welcome feedback via the website or on Twitter and we look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James References & Further Reading Risk of Delayed Intracranial Hemorrhage in Anticoagulated Patients with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Chauny JM. J Emerg Med. Jul 26 2016 Mannitol or hypertonic saline in the setting of traumatic brain injury: What have we learned? Boone MD. Surg Neurol Int. 2015 Life in the fast lane; hypertonic saline Life in the fast lane; Traumatic brain injury Traumatic brain injury in England and Wales: prospective audit of epidemiology, complications and standardised mortality. T Lawrence. BMJ Open. 2016 Epidemiology of traumatic brain injuries in Europe: a cross-sectional analysis. M.Majdan. The Lancet. 2016 The inefficiency of plain radiography to evaluate the cervical spine after blunt trauma. Gale SC. J Trauma. 2005 What is the relationship between the Glasgow coma scale and airway protective reflexes in the Chinese population? Rotheray KR. Resuscitation. 2012 NICE Head Injury Guidelines 2014 MDCALC Canadian Head Injury TheResusRoom; The AHEAD Study TheResusRoom; Anticoagulation, head injury & delayed bleeds Management of Perceived Devastating Brain Injury After Hospital Admission; A consensus statement  A case for stopping the early withdrawal of life sustaining therapies in patients with devastating brain injuries. Manara AR. J Intensive Care Soc. 2016

Welcome to July's papers podcast.  There has been a plethora of superb and thought provoking papers published this month and we've got the best 3 that caught our eye for you. In this episode we look at the potential benefit of early vs late endoscopy in patients presenting with an acute upper GI bleed.  Next we look at both intra and post ROSC hyperoxia and the associated outcomes. Finally we have a look at the utility of straight leg raise as a test to rule out potential pelvicfractures in out trauma patients. We strongly suggest you source the papers and come to your own conclusions and we'd love to hear any comments either at the foot of this page or on twitter to @TheResusRoom. Enjoy! Simon & Rob References & Further Reading Delayed endoscopy is associated with increased mortality in upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Jeong N. Am J Emerg Med. 2018  Association between intra- and post-arrest hyperoxia on mortality in adults with cardiac arrest: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Patel JK. Resuscitation. 2018 Straight leg elevation to rule out pelvic injury. Bolt C. Injury. 2018

Managing external haemorrhage is easy right?! Then why does haemorrhage remain a major cause of death from trauma worldwide? Ok, some of that is from internal sources, but…. No one should die from compressible external haemorrhage With the right treatment applied in a timely fashion, the vast majority of these bleeds can be stopped. But with new advances like haemostatic agents, changing advice surrounding tourniquet use and practice changing evidence coming out of conflict zones can mean it’s difficult to remain current with the latest best practice. So what options are available to us, how do we use them and what’s the evidence. Here’s the line-up for this months’ podcast: Haemorrhage control ladder Evidence based guidelines on haemorrhage control Direct pressure Enhanced pressure dressings Haemostatic agents and wound packing Tourniquets Case studies As always we welcome feedback via the website or on Twitter and we look forward to your engagement. Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James   References & Further Reading Bennett, B. L & Littlejohn, L. (2014) Review of new topical hemostatic dressings for combat casualty care. Military Medicine. Volume 179, number 5, pp497-514. Lee, C., Porter, K. M & Hodgetts, T. J. (2007) Tourniquet use in the civilian prehospital setting. Emergency Medicine Journal. Volume 24, pp584-7.  Nutbeam, T & Boylan, M. (2013) ABC of prehospital emergency medicine. Wiley Blackwell. London. Shokrollahi, K., Sharma, H & Gakhar, H. (2008) A technique for temporary control of haemorrhage. The Journal of Emergency Medicine. Volume 34, number 3, pp319-20. Trauma! Extremity Arterial Hemorrhage; LITFL  The European guideline on management of major bleeding and coagulopathy following trauma: fourth edition. Rolf Rossaint. Critical Care 2016. NICE 2016. Major Trauma; Assessment and Initial Management FPHC 2017; Position statement on the application of Tourniquets    

Welcome back to our monthly round up of the best papers in the resuscitation world. Again we've got 3 great papers covering some really important points of practice. First up we have a look at one of the most talked about diagnostic tests in Emergency Medicine, Troponin. We're are always looking to increase the sensitivity of the assay and test in order to ensure the patient hasn't got Acute Coronary Syndrome, but what are the implications of implementing a high sensitivity test? In our first paper we have a look at this exact scenario, the difference in patient outcomes and some of the resource implications to the service. Next up we have a look at apnoeic oxygeationn. We've covered this a number of times before and most recently in our Roadside to Resus episode on RSI. This time we have a look at the most recent systematic review and meta-analysis on the topic to see if there is more definitive evidence of benefit with this technique. Lastly we've found a paper that suggests a place for prognosticating off pH in cardiac arrest, is this something we should be adopting? Have a listen but most importantly have a look at the papers yourself and let us know your thoughts. Enjoy! Simon & Rob References & Further Reading Low-level troponin elevations following a reduced troponin I cutoff: Increased resource utilization without improved outcomes. Becker BA. Am J Emerg Med. 2018  Effectiveness of Apneic Oxygenation During Intubation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Oliveira J E Silva L. Ann Emerg Med. 2017  Association between acidosis and outcome in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. Lin CC. Am J Emerg Med. 2018.

The management of a cardiac arrest can be stressful at the best of times, but add into that the patient being a child and you have the potential for an overwhelmingly stressful situation. Fortunately the major resuscitation bodies have some sound guidance on the management of paediatric arrests. In this episode we run through some of those guidelines and also the evidence base on the topic (scant at best!). We also touch on conveyance of the prehospital paediatric arrest, bringing familiy into the resuscitation area and knowing when to cease resuscitation. We hope the podcast helps you prepare that little bit more for the next case you might see and that it may also ease the stress of such an emotive case. Simon, Rob & James

Professor Simon Carley from St. Emlyns caught up with us at the superb Trauma Care Conference and talked through his top papers in trauma from the last 12 months. There's something for everyone from diagnosing arterial injuries, blood pressure targets in the head injury patient, to i.v. contrast all the way through to imaging in kids. If you haven't already, make sure you go and check out the St Emlyn's blog that underpins the talk that Simon gave. And if you're looking for a great value conference to suit all health care disciplines then make sure to keep an eye out for tickets when they go on sale for Trauma Care 2019. A huge thanks to Simon C for his time recording the podcast and we'd love to hear any comments or feedback. Enjoy! Simon L & Simon C References & Further Reading For all the papers pop over to the St Emlyn's blog for the hyperlinks and abstracts

Dare we say it, we think this month's papers podcast is the best yet, we've got 3 superb papers and topics to consider! The literature has been pretty airway heavy this month so we've got 3 papers on and around the topic for you. First up we have a look at a really interesting paper from London HEMS looking at the risks v benefit of prehospital rapid sequence intubation in patients who are awake but hypotensive, is RSI a much needed move or something we should be looking to avoid prehospitally. Airways-2 will soon be published looking at supraglottic airway management compared to intubation as first line airway management in out of hospital cardiac arrest, but JAMA has just published a paper comparing bag-mask ventilation vs endotracheal intubation in the same situation. It'll be interesting to see if this papers results fall inline with Airways-2. Finally we take a look at a systematic review trying to give us the answer to direct or video laryngoscopy in emergency endotracheal intubation outside the OR. Have a listen but most importantly have a look at the papers yourself and let us know your thoughts. Enjoy! Simon & Rob References & Further Reading Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia in awake hypotensive trauma patients: beneficial or detrimental? Crewdson K. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2018  Effect of Bag-Mask Ventilation vs Endotracheal Intubation During Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on Neurological Outcome AfterOut-of-Hospital Cardiorespiratory Arrest: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Jabre P. JAMA. 2018  Videolaryngoscopy versus direct laryngoscopy for emergency orotracheal intubation outside the operating room: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Arulkumaran N. Br J Anaesth. 2018

Learn how statistics play a crucial role in evidence-based medicine with an insightful overview of key concepts like accuracy, prevalence, hypothesis, P values, and power calculations. Explore the importance of precision, confidence intervals, prevalence, incidence, and deciphering P values in research analysis. Dive into the world of false positives, false negatives, study errors, and the impact of factors like alpha, bias, and study size on research validity.

For this episode we’ve been lucky enough to catch a number of the speakers from the traumacare conference. First up, conference organiser Caroline Leech (EM + PHEM consultant) gave us a few minutes of her time to talk about the latest major trauma key performance indicators from NICE. Nicola Curry (Consultant Haematologist) spoke about transfusion in trauma and the use of massive haemorrhage protocols. Importantly, she covers the evidence behind the current strategies and where future research opportunities exist. Stuart Reid (EM + PHEM consultant) covered the ways of optimising timely transfer of major trauma patients. This had an inter-hospital focus, but there were certainly some elements which can be applied to a primary patient transfer. David Raven (EM consultant) provided an update to the ongoing work with the HECTOR project. We’ve previously heard about their amazing course but this time he was able to let us know about the “silver trauma safety net” which is being used by the ambulance service in the West Midlands. This aims to provide appropriate recognition and triage of trauma in the elderly population. Finally, Elspeth Hulse (anaesthetic SpR) gave us a timely reminder about the identification and management of organophosphate poisoning - really useful from both and EM and PHEM perspective. Thanks again to Caroline for the invite to the conference and keep and eye out for a special podcast in the next few weeks where Simon Carley will be running through his top 10 trauma papers of 2017/18 (we were going to try and condense it, but there was way too much good stuff!) Enjoy! Simon, Rob & James References & Further Reading Trauma Care St Emlyns HECTOR

In this episode Rob takes us through a case he saw recently that brought about some invaluable learning. We're not going to give you anymore clues than that! Enjoy! Simon & Rob References & Further Reading (anonymised to keep the anticipation!) Article 1   Article 2   Article 3   Article 4