Articles Tagged With:
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ED Violence Pushes Out Top Employees
While multiple factors can figure into an emergency provider’s decision to leave his or her profession, receiving threats or winding up as assault victims while on the job easily can be the final straw. Those who work in the ED say the violence in this setting is only growing worse.
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Staffing Shortages No. 1 Challenge in Healthcare
Short-staffed EDs mean patients have to wait longer for laboratory and diagnostic testing results, which could lead to delays in administering life-saving treatment.
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Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy: More than Hypertension and Proteinuria
This article explains the current diagnostic criteria for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and how they are interrelated. It also describes evidence-based interventions for emergency providers, who must know how to diagnose and treat these conditions, and when it is safe for discharge, as well as to arrange outpatient follow-up.
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Long-Term Neurological Outcomes of Patients Treated with CAR-T Therapy
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy is approved for the treatment of lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple myeloma, but its use is associated with early neurotoxicity in almost half of patients. Despite the incidence of neurotoxicity, long-term follow-up of patients after CAR-T infusion suggests that patients’ neurological examination, neuro-imaging studies, and cognition remain unaffected by this treatment.
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Treatment of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a rare opportunistic viral infection that occurs in patients who have chronic immunosuppression, has defied all attempts at treatment. This observational study, which pooled patient data from multiple centers around the world, showed that there is some benefit using checkpoint inhibitors to help reconstitute the immune system of these patients. However, survival, at best, is 50% of those treated.
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Intravenous Immunoglobulin in Dermatomyositis
Treatment of dermatomyositis with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) resulted in overall better clinical improvement after 16 weeks compared to patients treated with placebo. However, there was a significant number of thromboembolic adverse events in the treatment group. The group of patients treated was a heterogeneous group. However, IVIG now is U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved for the treatment of dermatomyositis.
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Is IVIG Treatment Really Better than Natural Recovery in Patients with Guillain-Barré Syndrome?
In this controversial report comparing patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome treated with intravenous immunoglobulin vs. no treatment, the group that appears to have fared the best were patients who had an acute demyelinating syndrome, and not an axonal variant. This was an observational study and not a randomized treatment trial.
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Better Diagnostics Equals Fewer Unnecessary Antibiotic Prescriptions
Researchers credit diagnostic stewardship as the top reason for an impressive reduction in needless antibiotic prescriptions.
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Infectious Disease Alert Updates
Screening for Chagas in HIV; It’s Not All About the Cough; Linezolid and Cycloserine in CSF Adequate
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Can Maternal COVID-19 Vaccination Protect Newborns?
In this case control study, 537 case infants younger than 6 months of age who were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 were compared to 512 control infants who were hospitalized for other reasons; 16% of the case infants and 29% of the control infants had been born to mothers who had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 during the pregnancy. The effectiveness of maternal vaccination against infant hospitalization for COVID-19 was 52% overall, 80% during the Delta variant period, and 38% during the Omicron variant period. Effectiveness increased when the vaccine was received after 20 weeks of pregnancy.