Severe alcoholic hepatitis as defined by a Maddrey’s Discriminant Function [MDF] score, >32 can carry risk for 1-month mortality of greater than 50%. Current AASLD guidelines recommend corticosteroids (prednisolone 40 mg daily for 28 days) for patients with severe acute…
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Have you ever been able to see the vocal cords during direct laryngoscopy but you weren’t able to pass the endotracheal tube cuff beyond the cords?  This occurs not too infrequently during endotracheal intubation and I am going to share…
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Beta2-agonists and anticholinergics are the initial bronchodilators Prednisone 1 mg/kg/day (up to 60 mg/day) or steroid equivalent for moderate-severe exacerbations x 5-7 days Antibiotics indicated for moderate-severe exacerbations with pulmonary infiltrate or sputum purulence –procalcitonin level >0.25 ng/mL supports antibiotic…
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This population-based cohort study between 2000 and 2012 from the UK’s Health Improvement Network database compared diagnoses between 275,000 adults who had been prescribed corticosteroids and 626,000 who had not been prescribed corticosteroids.  The query was whether corticosteroid recipients had…
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The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regards serious preventable hospital-acquired conditions as “never events.” In this study, investigators used a nationwide U.S. hospital database to compare risks for 11 serious hospital-acquired conditions after weekend or weekday admissions. The…
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Perioperative Hyperglycemia Predicts Postoperative Complications only in Non-Diabetics Limited research has suggested that nondiabetic surgical patients who develop perioperative hyperglycemia are at above-average risk for postoperative complications. In this retrospective study, researchers examined the relation between perioperative glucose levels and…
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