Beta-blockers have generally been considered safe and beneficial for patients with COPD, but a new randomized trial calls that assumption into doubt. The use of oral beta blockers without a cardiac indication appeared to double the risk of hospitalization for people experiencing a COPD exacerbation. Authors randomized 532 patients with moderate or severe COPD with [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] The transient and reversible loss of consciousness that may accompany pulmonary embolism [PE] is well-documented [1-7]. This brief post will not address the controversy regarding the prevalence of PE in ‘unexplained’ syncope; rather, it will focus on pathomechanisms and serve as the foundation for a few forthcoming entries on pulmonary thromboembolism [… read more]
Tens of millions of adults in the U.S. have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), but most are mild cases that pose low health risks. A greater danger is faced by the smaller number of people with sleep apnea that progresses to obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS), a life-threatening condition. Obesity hypoventilation syndrome — an impairment in resting [… read more]
Use of C-reactive protein (CRP) in decision-making may reduce antibiotic use in COPD exacerbations, but not as a replacement for clinical judgment, a study suggested. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations are characterized by increased inflammation in the airways and the body generally. C-reactive protein (CRP) is a serum test for inflammation, and has been [… read more]
by Molly Walker, Associate Editor, MedPage Today If you want an accurate reading from sepsis patients’ blood cultures, don’t start antibiotics until you’ve drawn the blood samples, a new study suggested. Among patients with severe sepsis, blood cultures taken prior to antibiotic therapy were positive for one or more microbial pathogens in 31.4% of patients [… read more]
Vitamin C infusion has generated tremendous interest as an adjunctive treatment for patients with sepsis, since a widely publicized cohort study claimed vitamin C dramatically reduced sepsis-related mortality at a single institution. The publicity, the plausible pathophysiologic mechanism, and the lack of any therapy for sepsis have led many intensivists to prescribe the so-called Marik [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] “There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.” -Marie Curie In part 1 of Vaping-Associated Lung Injury, the very basics of electronic nicotine delivery systems [ENDS] were covered as well as highlights on clinical presentation, radiology and pathology. In this second part, flurries of [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] with illustration by Carla M. Canepa MD [@_carlemd_] “Inside the word ‘emergency’ is ‘emerge’; from an emergency, new things come forth.” -Rebecca Solnit Case A 32-year-old man is admitted with three days of fevers, chills, malaise, dyspnea and productive cough. He works in a stressful job in the heart of Manhattan [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] with illustrations by Carla M. Canepa MD [@_carlemd_] “Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.” -Margaret Atwood Case A 73-year-old woman with a history of severe chronic bronchitis, ESRD receiving thrice-weekly hemodialysis and heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction is admitted from home with fevers, [… read more]
Targeted temperature management (TTM, or therapeutic hypothermia) has become standard therapy after cardiac arrest, especially for ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation–so called shockable rhythms. A new randomized trial has shown that deep, prolonged cooling after cardiac arrest from non-shockable rhythms (PEA and asystole) improved neurologic outcomes. But how robust were the results, and should they change [… read more]
In their first major update in 30 years, newly published asthma guidelines recommend significant changes to the way physicians treat millions of patients diagnosed with asthma. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) now advises that, in general: Most people with asthma can now be prescribed just one inhaler: an inhaled corticosteroid-and-long-acting beta agonist (ICS-LABA) combination [… read more]
Inferior vena cava filters placed prophylactically in patients hospitalized for trauma prevented symptomatic pulmonary embolism in those patients with persistent contraindications to anticoagulation, in a significant randomized trial. However, prophylactic IVC filter placement for all post-trauma patients did not improve outcomes generally. Trauma teams have always faced a difficult dilemma in the prevention and treatment [… read more]
From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and distributed here in the interest of the public health. PulmCCM is not affiliated with the CDC. Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network August 30, 2019, 0935 AM ET (9:35 AM ET) CDCHAN-00421 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is providing: 1) background [… read more]
Update 9/6/19: we removed the video at Jon’s request. Frequent PulmCCM contributor Jon-Emile Kenny is also a co-founder of the medical device start-up Flosonics Medical who (as I understand it) are working to develop and market a wearable ultrasound patch that would help direct fluid resuscitation and vasopressor use in patients in shock. PulmCCM has [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] “I know that character exists from the outside alone. I know that inside the body there’s just temperature.” -Sheila Heti Background: DPG versus PVR In 1971, the use of the pulmonary artery diastolic pressure gradient [DPG] was introduced to better refine the hemodynamic definition of pulmonary vascular disease. What is the [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee …” -Carly Simon Background A recent letter to the editor in Critical Care posed a rather provocative question – ‘Are we really preventing lung collapse with APRV?’ The authors cited a case report of esophageal manometry used in [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] In part 1, the basics of ventriculo-arterial coupling [VAC] were described and related to the Guyton Diagram. In this second part, the notion of cardiac performance [Eh] is explored in relation to venous Doppler velocimetry. Subsequently, I hypothesize that ‘veno-cardiac uncoupling’ – a concept analogous to VAC – is a [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] Background Concepts have been clanging around my head since I participated in Philippe Rola’s [@thinkingCC] sedulous Hospitalist & Resuscitationist Conference in Montreal. Initially, the abstractions of ventriculo-arterial coupling, Guytonian physiology and venous Doppler seemed insuperably sundered; but the cognitive haranguing recently gave way to harmony. What is ventriculo-arterial coupling and [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD [@heart_lung] “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now …” -Joni Mitchell Background In a recent physiological study – brought to my attention by the erudite and kinetic [@iceman_ex] – the detailed physiological effects of intravenous fluids, norepinephrine and dobutamine were sequentially evaluated in patients with sepsis. Sepsis was defined as [… read more]
In a new randomized trial, use of dexmedetomidine (Precedex) as the primary sedative in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU resulted in no reduction in 90 day mortality. Dexmedetomidine resulted in a small improvement in delirium and ventilator days, but was almost never adequate to sedate patients on its own, and brought a small increase [… read more]
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