The Resus Room

Think of rhabdomyolysis and you'll think of an elevated creatine kinase (CK). The condition ranges from an asymptomatic period to a life-threatening condition with a hugely associated rise in CK which can also be accompanied by electrolyte disturbance, renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation. Rhabdomyolysis is caused by a breakdown in skeletal muscle and occurs most commonly following trauma, very often that can be due to a 'long-lie' when a patient is unable to get off a floor until help arrives after a prolonged period. There are other causes including drugs, muscle enzyme deficiencies, electrolyte abnormalities and more. The presentation itself is pretty vague and suspicion of the disease needs to be pretty high. Patients can experience weakness, myalgia and the dark'coca-cola urine', the diagnosis is then confirmed with a serum elevation in CK. The big concern with Rhabdomyolysis is the hit the kidneys take. Acute kidney injury is due to the heme pigment that is released from myoglobin and haemoglobin and is nephrotoxic. Early aggressive fluid rehydration aims to minimise ischaemic injury, increase urinary flow rates and thus limit intratubular cast formation. Fluids also help eliminate excess K+ that may be associated. But have a think about the management in your ED, how high does that CK need to be to require i.v. fluids and admission to hospital? Here's a few facts we need to know: Normal CK enzyme levels are 45–260 U/l. CK rises in rhabdomyolysis within 12hours of the onset of muscle injury CK levels peak at 1–3 days, and declines 3–5 days after muscle injury The peak CK level may be predictive of the development of renal failure A CK level of 5000 U/l or greater is related to renal failure Optimal fluid rate administration is unclear, some papers suggest replacement of isotonic saline at rates of 1-2L per hour. , adjusted to 200-300mL per hour to maintain a diuresis. Attention needs to be paid to urine output serum markers and fluid status. A lot of the evidence and knowledge surrounding rhabdomyolysis is from humanitarian disasters; earthquakes, terrorism along with observational cohorts, but at the end of the day we need to work with what we've got. Have a listen to the podcast and see what you think, the application of the evidence base may change your practice. Enjoy!  References Bench-to-bedside review: Rhabdomyolysis -- an overview for clinicians. Huerta-Alardín AL. Crit Care. 2005 Creatine kinase MB isoenzyme in dermatomyositis: a noncardiac source. Larca LJ. Ann Intern Med. 1981 Epidemiologic aspects of the Bam earthquake in Iran: the nephrologic perspective. Hatamizadeh P. Am J Kidney Dis. 2006   Prognostic value, kinetics and effect of CVVHDF on serum of the myoglobin and creatine kinase in critically ill patients with rhabdomyolysis. Mikkelsen TS. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2005 Rhabdomyolysis: an evaluation of 475 hospitalized patients. Melli G. Medicine (Baltimore). 2005 Serum creatine kinase as predictor of clinical course in rhabdomyolysis: a 5-year intensive care survey. de Meijer AR. Intensive Care Med. 2003 Prevention and treatment of heme pigment-induced acute kidney injury (acute renal failure). Paul M Palevsky. UpToDate. 2015  

Epistaxis is an extremely common presentation to both Prehospital Emergency Services and Emergency Departments. The vast majority are benign and self limiting but every once in a while a catastrophic bleed will come our way.  Whilst not necessarily the most attention grabbing of topics a sound understanding of the management is key to excellent care. In this podcast Rob talk us through the management of epistaxis, all the way from causes and presentation, right the way through to resuscitative management and latest evidenced based treatment. Enjoy! References & Further Reading LITFL epistaxis review Geeky medics epistaxis  BMJ overview paper & management flowchart Routine coagulation screening in the management of emergency admission for epistaxis; is it necessary? Thaha MA. J Laryngol Otol 2000 Front-line epistaxis management: let's not forget the basic. E C Ho. J Laryngol Otol 2008 Serious spontaneous epistaxis and hypertension in hospitalized patients.Page C. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2011  Tranexamic acid in epistaxis: a systematic review. Kamhieh Y, et al. Clin Otolaryngol. 2016

Welcome back to Papers of the Month. February holds a diverse number of topics on some really interesting areas of practice. We kick off with a snap shot systematic review from the Annals of Emergency Medicine on the effect of Amiodarone or Lignocaine on the outcome from refractory VF or VT arrests, are drugs losing more favour yet again in cardiac arrest. Next up is a pilot study following the surgical theme of minimal intervention for appendicitis, can antibiotics safely be used in a particular cohort of patients to prevent the need for surgery? And moreover could this be even safer than the traditional surgical cure? Last up we cover a paper looking at the survival from traumatic cardiac arrest and consider the bias that may occur by reporting those resuscitation attempts that are of limited duration in with the whole cohort; are we painting a overly negative picture of the prognosis of traumatic cardiac arrest? As ever we would highly encourage you to go and read the papers yourselves, these are only our takes on the literature and we would love to hear your thoughts below. Enjoy Simon & Rob References & Further Reading In Patients With Cardiac Arrest, Does Amiodarone or Lidocaine Increase Meaningful Survival? Hunter BR. Ann Emerg Med Antibiotics-First Versus Surgery for Appendicitis: A US Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial AllowingOutpatient Antibiotic Management. Talan DA. Ann Emerg Med. 2016 Dec Resuscitation attempts and duration in traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Beck B. Resuscitation 2017 Feb

Those of us who are a bit longer in the tooth have spent most of our careers not scanning everyone who sustained a head injury on warfarin, but in 2104 NICE published guidance suggesting we do just that. At times, with the huge burden we place on our radiology services, it is difficult not think we're over doing things with all of these scan requests, especially when the patient has no adverse symptoms or signs. Fortunately the AHEAD study has just been published which looks at thousands of patients presenting to ED's on warfarin with a head injury. The paper is open access and deserves a full read, in this podcast I run through some of the main parts of the study and have a think about how it might impact on our practice. This is just one part of the puzzle on the management of patients with anticoagulated head injuries, we had a look previously on what to do if you perform a scan and that appears normal in our Anticoagulation, Head Injury & Delayed Bleeds Podcast. Hope you enjoy the podcast and we'd love to hear any of your feedback on social media or on the website. Simon

A lot of our podcasts have focussed on prognostic factors in arrest to help with the decision making of continuing or stopping resuscitation in cardiac arrest. There would appear to be a huge variety in practice as to when resuscitation is ceased, and in that way having explicit guidance to unify practice can at times seem appealing. In this episode we have a look at a recent paper covering the topic, it suggests a group of patients accounting for nearly half of cardiac arrests, that upon recognition could safely lead us to cease efforts. Have a listen to the podcast and let us know what you think! References Early Identification of Patients With Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest With No Chance of Survival and Consideration for Organ Donation. Jabre P. Ann Intern Med. 2016 Resuscitation Council; Recognition of Life Extinct

Happy New Year!!! The publishing world seems to have wound down a bit for the festive break, but 4 papers caught out eye that can add some further context to practice in the Resus Room. Firstly we take a look at two papers looking at the conversion from non-shockable to shockable rhythms in cardiac arrest, both the likelihood and the associated prognosis. Next up we have a look at a paper focussing on Cerebral Performance Categories (CPC's) and their reliability as an outcome for studies. Lastly we have a look at the recent Cochrane Review on video laryngoscopy vs direct laryngoscopy for adult intubation. Thanks again to our sponsors ADPRAC for supporting the podcast. References & Further Reading Age-specific differences in prognostic significance of rhythmconversion from initial non-shockable to shockable rhythm and subsequent shock delivery in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Funada A. Resuscitation. 2016 Conversion to shockable rhythms during resuscitation and survivalfor out-of hospital cardiac arrest. Wah W. Am J Emerg Med. 2016  Inter-rater reliability of post-arrest cerebral performance category(CPC) scores. Grossestreuer AV. Resuscitation. 2016 Videolaryngoscopy versus direct laryngoscopy for adult patients requiring tracheal intubation. Lewis SR. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016 

As the years tick by our healthcare systems work harder and harder to ensure that acute coronary syndromes are picked up as they present to our Emergency Departments, the evolution of high sensitivity troponins and their application have been key to this. The utility of a test however is dependant upon it's application to the appropriate patient. In a heavily burdened system it can at times seem sensible to front load tests and 'add on a troponin' before we are even sure the history is consistent with a possible acute coronary syndrome. But is this a safe approach for our patients and what are the potential consequences? In this podcast we run through a recent paper from the US on the topic. Whilst not the highest level of evidence and also looking at a system not entirely generalisable to the UK, it does highlight the aforementioned concerns and is a useful reminder to consider our approach to testing in patients with chest pain. We are certainly not berating the use of troponin, we just think the paper serves a great reminder that testing must be appropriately applied. Enjoy, and as ever we'd love to hear your feedback! References SIGN ACS Guidelines 2016 RCEMFOAMed SIGN ACS Guidelines Causes of Elevated Cardiac Troponins in the Emergency Department and Their Associated Mortality. Meigher S. Acad Emerg Med. 2016 Cardiac Troponin: The basics from St. Emlyn’s Rick Body via St Emlyns; One high sensitivity troponin test to rule out acute myocardial infarction  

So my talk at the ICS SOA 2016 conference on whether ED should be allowed to intubate certainly provoked some discussion, which was fortunate as it was the purpose of the talk! If you haven't listened to it yet, stop listening to this and have a listen to the talk here first. In this quick debrief between Rob and myself we have a think about the feedback and where to go from here. We'd love to hear any feedback in the comments section at the webpage at www.TheResusRoom.co.uk Simon

RSI delivered by EM clinicians is common place throughout the globe, in the UK however it still seems a contentious topic, with recent data showing only 20% of ED RSIs being performed by EM clinicians. I was lucky enough to be asked to talk at the ICS SoA 2016 conference on the topic of EM doctors carrying out RSI's in the UK and this podcast is a copy of that talk. I hope it provides some context both to UK practitioners and also to those from other countries, who may not understand what the big deal is all about. Simon References A randomized controlled trial on the effect of educational interventions in promoting airway management skill maintenance.Randomized controlled trial. Kovacs G, et al. Ann Emerg Med. 2000 Acute airway management in the emergency department by non-anesthesiologists. Review article. Kovacs G, et al. Can J Anaesth. 2004 Achieving house staff competence in emergency airway management: results of a teaching program using a computerized patient simulator. Mayo PH, et al. Crit Care Med. 2004 The who, where, and what of rapid sequence intubation: prospective observational study of emergency RSI outside the operating theatre. Reid C, et al. Emerg Med J. 2004 Rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia in UK emergency departments: a national census. Benger J, et al. Emerg Med J. 2011. Tracheal intubation in an urban emergency department in Scotland: a prospective, observational study of 3738 intubations. Kerslake D, et al. Resuscitation. 2015 Systematic review and meta-analysis of first-pass success rates in emergency department intubation: Creating a benchmark for emergency airway care. Park L, et al. Emerg Med Australas. 2016 Scottish Intensive Care Society: RSI Difficult Airway Society Guidelines RCOA Anaesthesia in the Emergency Department Guidelines; Chapter 6.1 John Hinds on RSI at RCEM 2015 Belfast Draft; AAGBI Guidelines: Safer pre-hospital anaesthesia 2016 AAGBI Pre-hospital Anaesthesia Guideline 2009

Welcome to December's Papers of the month where we'll be looking at the papers recently published that have caught our eye. First up, what happens when clinicians override clinical decision rules for PE? Are we better than the the rules? Next we have a look at a review article that runs through the back ground literature on subsegmental PE's, their diagnosis and management. And finally we have a look at a paper that helps to benchmark ED airway management with regards first pass success rate. Our sponsors ADPRAC are giving away another £30 iTunes voucher to spend on education/entertainment to support your work life balance! All you need to do is click the link on our home page through to the ADPRAC website and answer the question relating to the podcast, good luck! References & Further Reading Yield of CT Pulmonary Angiography in the Emergency Department When Providers Override Evidence-based Clinical Decision Support. Yan Z. Radiology. 2016 Best Clinical Practice: Current Controversies in Pulmonary Embolism Imaging and Treatment of Subsegmental Thromboembolic Disease. Long B. J Emerg Med. 2016 Systematic review and meta-analysis of first-pass success rates in emergency department intubation: Creating a benchmark for emergency airway care. Park L. Emerg Med Australas. 2016