Tactical Medicine News Blog

The management of the critically hemorrhaging trauma patient has seen a large amount of change over last decade, from bringing care far forward to the field to early use of blood products to civilian translation and application tourniquets to name a few. The reality unfortunately is that there is still a subgroup of patients who continue to suffer early mortality from hemorrhage, primarily because they are bleeding in the torso.  This is particularly challenging for both prehospital and in-hospital clinicians to manage as these areas do not allow control through direct compression. Enter resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) – a technique that builds on principles from vascular surgery and sees the placement of a balloon catheter into the aorta via the femoral artery.  Acting as an internal tourniquet, it temporarily occludes flow to the bleeding vessel thus providing circulatory support and precious time to get the patient to definitive care. With the alternative being death from hemorrhage, REBOA came as a breath of fresh air – a minimally invasive means of achieving hemorrhage control in these extremely sick patients. There were innovators and early adopters and reports of fantastic saves – patients were surviving who would never have survived before. 

Background: Rapid Sequence Intubation (RSI)  is a common procedure performed by both emergency clinicians and intensivists. Although the procedure is complex, the major pieces are pre-oxygenation, administration of a sedative agent in close proximity with a paralytic, laryngoscopy and placement of an endotracheal tube without the provision of any ventilations during the process. The avoidance of bag-mask ventilations (BMV), or any positive pressure breaths, rests on the belief that those breaths can distend the stomach and lead to regurgitation and aspiration. For this to happen, the force of the breath must exceed the pressure of the lower esophageal sphincter (~ 20 mm Hg). Critically ill patients presenting with airway compromise cannot be guaranteed to have a fasting state, regurgitation and aspiration is a major concern. However, there’s another side to this. Many of our patients who are critically ill have intrapulmonary shunting; portions of the lung are atelectatic, filled with fluid, blood, or pus and not being oxygenated though they are being perfused. Blood running through these portions of the lung will be deoxygenated and will lower the overall O2 content of blood entering the systemic circulation after mixing with blood coming from ventilated regions. This shunting at least partially explains why we see patients rapidly desaturating during intubation. Positive pressure can recruit atelectatic portions of the lung that are not involved in gas exchange thus decreasing the physiologic shunt and increasing the patient’s oxygen reserve. Despite decades of experience with RSI we continue to look for better approaches since the procedure still poses serious risks to the patient. Recent modifications that have seen wide adoption include using the bed-up-head-elevated (BUHE) position, suction assisted laryngoscopy for airway decontamination (SALAD) and bougie first intubation, though there are many more. Now, a publication in the NEJM makes us question the core principle of BMV during RSI.

Take Home Points on Oncologic Emergencies: Hyperviscosity Syndrome happens when elevated WBCs or severe hyperproteinemia cause high serum viscosity and micro-circulatory problems in patients with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, multiple myeloma or acute leukemia. Be suspicious of this syndrome in these patient’s when they present with the classic triad of mucosal bleeding, visual disturbances, and neurological symptoms or with any end organ failure. Tumor Lysis Syndrome results from high turnover of malignant cells resulting in severe metabolic derangements including hypocalcemia, hyperkalemia, hyperphosphatemia, hyperuricemia, AKI, metabolic acidosis. Be suspicious of this in patients presenting with edema, hematuria, fatigue, weakness, altered mental status or symptoms that go along with specific metabolic derangement, particularly if they recently received chemotherapy, radiation or high dose steroids.  

More women than men entered medical school in the United States for the first time in 2017. Will this generation also set new trends in parenting during their training? One study suggests that 40% of female residents plan to have a child while in residency.1 Can our graduate medical education system withstand even a modest increase in the number of resident parents? Can your hospital?

Background: With CMS core measures requiring timely use of antibiotics in patients with fever and suspected sepsis, many patients receive antibiotics up front that may ultimately end up having another non-bacterial etiology as the cause of their fever.  On the one hand overuse of antibiotics can increase bacterial resistance, healthcare costs, and potential side effects. On the other hand, withholding antibiotics from patients with bacterial infections can increase morbidity and mortality. The authors of this trial wanted to determine whether a procalcitonin-guided algorithm could be used to reduce antibiotic regimens in the ED.