(image: Hospira) Akihito Hagihara et al present suggestive data in the March 21 JAMA that giving epinephrine to people with out of hospital cardiac arrest increases their chances of making it to the hospital with a pulse, but not of making it home with decent brain function or functional status. In a prospective observational analysis [... read more]
(image: flickrCC) Health insurance plans are shifting an increasing portion of costs for prescription medications onto patients. A recent study in JAMA concluded that such cost shifting decreased asthma medication use and increased hospitalization rates in U.S. children. But the effect, if real, was small. What They Did Pinar Karaca-Mandic et al looked back at [... read more]
Inferior Vena Cava Filters for Prevention of Pulmonary Embolism from the ACCP Guidelines, 9th Ed. Inferior vena cava filters should generally be placed in patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) or deep venous thrombosis (DVT) who have a contraindication to anticoagulation, according to the ACCP’s recommendations. The ACCP recommends against placing an IVC filter in patients [... read more]
The CDC announced in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) the sad story of three members of a close-knit Maryland family who all died within days of each other from pneumonia due to seasonal influenza A (H3N2) with methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) co-infection. Three additional family members acquired the same influenza A strain (which was [... read more]
(image: flickrCC) Endobronchial ultrasound with transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA), when performed by skilled physicians, reduces the need for mediastinoscopy and unnecessary thoracotomies with their associated morbidity, and is poised to permanently alter the landscape of lung cancer diagnosis and staging. Prior to 2008, Medicare seemed to recognize the potential value of EBUS by paying hospitals [... read more]
Thrombolytics for Acute Pulmonary Embolism from the ACCP Guidelines, 9th Ed. The ACCP’s recommendation classification system: 1 = “recommendation” 2 = “suggestion” A = based on strong evidence from randomized trials B = moderate evidence that may include randomized trials or observational studies C = weak evidence, mostly consensus opinion Which patients with acute pulmonary embolism [... read more]
(image: Cardinal Health) Should you routinely check pleural pressures with bedside manometry during thoracentesis? David Feller-Kopman of Johns Hopkins says, of course: it’s zero risk, zero cost, only seconds of extra time, and provides potentially useful clinical information. Specifically, one can identify people with “entrapped lung” and “trapped lung”: Identifying “Entrapped Lung” by Pleural Pressures [... read more]
From the excellent review by Lonny Yarmus and David Feller-Kopman in the April 2012 Chest, along with the British Thoracic Society and ACCP’s consensus statements: Mechanisms of Pneumothorax in the Critically Ill Air can accumulate in the pleural space in three ways: Rupture of the visceral pleura allowing air to travel from alveoli to the [... read more]
Texting while doctoring is a newly hyped threat to patient safety. Multitasking and the constant flow of new distracting information in the form of alarms, interruptions, pages, etc. have always been inherent to the practice of medicine. But some are wondering if the ubiquitous temptations of personal social media-enabled smartphones and tablets in the medical [... read more]
Providing appropriate sedation and analgesia to mechanically ventilated patients is of paramount importance in the ICU. John P. Kress changed clinical practice for the better by showing that daily sedation interruptions (sedation vacations or sedation holidays) reduce ventilator days and mortality. He and Shruti Patel of the University of Chicago provide a fresh update on [... read more]
(image: Plioz.com) Ever cared for that patient with metastatic cancer in your ICU, intubated for acute respiratory failure and surrounded by a bewildered and stressed family who cope by emotionally blaming you, the intensivist, because “He just saw his oncologist last week, and he said everything was OK!”? Forcing you to begin painful end-of-life discussions [... read more]
Provent is the trade name for disposable, stick-on nose plugs made by Ventus Medical that are a relatively new (second-line) treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. The bandage-like device has pinholes cut in the nostrils that let air in during inspiration, but create back pressure during exhalation, helping prevent airway collapse. The New York Times just [... read more]
It’s time to revise the traditional approach to the management of pulmonary nodules, abandon the concept of a “solitary pulmonary nodule,” and update our cognitive strategy incorporating the changes in practice and decision-making brought by the frequency of chest CT scanning and its vastly increased sensitivity over chest films of the old era. So say David Ost and Michael Gould, in their concise [... read more]
We have our hands full at PulmCCM Central just keeping up with the best published literature in pulmonary and critical care medicine. Somehow, the folks at NYU manage to vet the much larger volume of literature published in internal medicine, and offer it in a user-friendly review in their Clinical Correlations blog. Clinical Correlations is [... read more]
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to many chronic medical conditions, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In some cases, more severe vitamin D deficiency is associated with more severe chronic illness. However, it’s never been shown that vitamin D deficiency supplemenation improves or prevents illness; i.e., that vitamin D deficiency causes or exacerbates [... read more]
Antiviral drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) made big bucks for Roche and GSK respectively during the H1N1 influenza pandemic: Roche reportedly sold about $3 billion of Tamiflu in 2009. Although sales have dropped off precipitously, the drugs are still recommended by CDC for serious cases of seasonal influenza. But do Relenza and Tamiflu even [... read more]
What happens when the “Rapid Response Team” is called for an acutely deteriorating patient, but there’s no ICU bed available to send her to? In Alberta, Canada, not much, apparently. Henry Stelfox, Brenda Hemmelgarn, and Braden Manns analyzed 3,494 consecutive patients with “Code MET (medical emergency team)” rapid-response activations in Calgary between 2007 and 2009. [... read more]
Treating Acute Pulmonary Embolism with Anticoagulant Therapy from the ACCP Guidelines, 9th Ed. The ACCP‘s new 9th edition of their authoritative clinical practice guidelines for prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE) were published in February 2012, and we’ll be summarizing the 801-page long document piece by piece. (See also our summaries of the other sections of the 9th edition recommendations.) [... read more]
Bronchial Thermoplasty for Refractory Asthma Update Even with maximal treatment with medications, some patients with severe asthma remain symptomatic with impaired lung function and quality of life. Bronchial thermoplasty is a new treatment approved by the FDA in 2010 as a therapy for severe asthma not controlled by inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta agonists. Bronchial thermoplasty essentially [... read more]
The 5-year results of the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial (DLCST) were reported in the April 2012 Thorax, and they show no mortality benefit from annual screening for lung cancer with chest CT. Rather, it appeared that more harmless early stage cancers were identified through screening — “overdiagnosis” of cancers that would never have advanced [... read more]