How's this for a practice gap? It's estimated that 1 in 10 suicide victims are people seen in the emergency department within 2 months of dying. Suicide is an issue of public health, which, in today's medical system, is often the domain of the emergency physician (EP).
In this prospective, multicenter, randomized trial, addition of a helium-oxygen gas mixture to non-invasive positive pressure ventilation in the treatment of COPD exacerbations did not decrease the need for intubation when compared to non-invasive positive pressure ventilation alone.
Even if asymptomatic, early elective aortic valve replacement should be considered for increasingly symptomatic patients with severe aortic valve stenosis because they have a poor prognosis with a high event rate and a risk of rapid functional deterioration, especially if the peak aortic jet velocity is above 5.5 m/sec.
Each year, about 795,000 strokes occur in the United States; 85% of these are acute ischemic strokes.
