Antipyretics Do Not Change Mortality in Septic Patients

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Hospital Procedures, Infections, medical procedures
More Tags – HPC updates, nosocomial infections, sepsis
Fever is universally treated in the setting of infection in virtually all hospitals, but does treatment of fever improve outcomes in patients with sepsis? This meta-analysis of eight randomized trials (1507 patients) and six observational studies (2058 patients) that compared…
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A Low Peripheral Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio Can Help to Exclude a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Emergency Procedures, Hematology, Medical General, medical procedures
More Tags – CT scan, Headache, HPC updates, subarachnoid hemorrhage
An elevated peripheral neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio is an indicator of inflammation. Investigators from a Turkish university hospital hypothesized that this ratio might differ in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) versus those with other headache syndromes. They performed a retrospective study of…
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2017 Consensus Guidelines on the Approach to Syncope in Adults and Children

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Cardiovascular diseases, Emergency Procedures, Medical General, Oncology, Respiratory diseases, Traumatology
More Tags – Aortic dissection, aortic stenosis, AV block, cancer, Cardiac ischemia, cardiac syncope, Cardiac tamponade, diabetes mellitus, GI bleed, heart block, Heart failure, HPC updates, Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, pulmonary embolism, Severe prosthetic valve dysfunction, syncope, trauma
Key Recommendations 1). Initial evaluation Conduct physical exam, history (with careful attention to factors in Tables 1 & 2) and resting electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify a possible cause (see Tables 2 & 3). 2). Disposition from the emergency department (ED)…
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Extended cardiac monitoring is indicated for evaluation of cryptogenic strokes in elderly patients

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Cardiovascular diseases, Central line, Medical General, medical procedures, Neurological diseases
More Tags – atrial fibrillation, cardiac monitoring, cryptogenic strokes, HPC updates, ischemic strokes, stroke
Prior studies have found that in patients with cryptogenic ischemic strokes, extended post-stroke cardiac monitoring detects intermittent atrial fibrillation (AF) in up to 20% of cases. Now, an industry-sponsored study from Germany randomized 400 patients all over 60 years old…
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