chf

November 8, 2014

Limited EGDT in Zambia Study: Salt Water Drowning Syndrome… #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So in this month’s issue of Critical Care Medicine, an interesting article was published, where investigators took a (necessarily) simplified version of EGDT to Zambia and applied it to septic patients. It turned out they had to stop it early due to an excessive number of cases of respiratory failure in the treatment group.  The difference was – you guessed it – they got “aggressive” volume resuscitation – up to 4l in the first 6 hours – guided by JVP assessment, and blood and dopamine if needed.

Simplified_Severe_Sepsis_Protocol___A_Randomized.1

The amounts received by 6, 24 and 72h were 2.9, 3.9 and 5.6 l for the treatment group vs 1.6, 3.0 and 4.3 l.

Now lets keep in mind that the patients, for the most part, did not have access to critical care, so the limited resources for ventilatory support made stopping the trial a bit early the only reasonable thing to do. Mortality in the treatment group was 64% and control 60%. High numbers, but this is explained in part by the prevalence of HIV (80%) and TB (37% of the HIV positive patients), so this data can’t necessarily be extrapolated to all populations, but to me, this is physiological support for the concept that aggressive fluid resuscitation – as I have stated in prior posts/podcasts – is most dangerous in those patients where the septic source – presumably “leaky” is ill-equipped to handle extra-physiological fluid.  In these patients, as Myburgh states in a sepsis talk, “noradrenaline is the fluid of choice,” and although perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, this certainly speaks to my beliefs of resuscitating to euvolemia rather than to the lack of volume responsiveness (http://intensivecarenetwork.com/myburgh-john-beta-blockers-and-sepsis/).

Additionally, these patients were not hypotensive, and lactate was not available – local limitations of medical system. Hence the definition of severe sepsis triggering aggressive fluid resuscitation was based  on SIRS type criteria, rather than some form of volume assessment.

 

Bottom line?

Be cautious in aggressive fluid administration in pulmonary sepsis. What, I really dislike when people say “be careful” or “be cautious,” because let’s face it, that doesn’t really mean anything, does it?  It doesn’t tell you what to actually do… We are frontline clinicians, so I’ll say to limit fluid resuscitation in pulmonary sepsis.  2 litres up front?  Probably ok so long as I have a varying, mid-size IVC (maybe 10-15mm – arbitrary and chronic pulmonary disease and hypertension have to be factored in) and a decent heart, but I don’t want to get to the point of no longer being fluid-responsive. Rather, go to pressors a bit earlier, perhaps, and no need for ongoing “maintenance” fluids at 100-150 cc’s an hour – remember that 80% of this wonderful therapy ends up where we don’t want it to.

 

cheers!

 

Philippe

PS for awesome talks by amazing speakers, don’t forget to register for CCUS 2015!!! For more info: http://wp.me/p1avUV-aU and register at http://www.ccusinstitute.org! 

October 23, 2014

Venous Hypertension: The Under-Appreciated Enemy…A Tale of Nephrologists, Neurosurgeons and Andre Denault…and a podcast. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So, some of you may have seen one of my earlier posts about the myth of low-flow renal failure in CHF (http://wp.me/p1avUV-2J), and be aware of my growing conviction that elevated venous pressures – too often sought after – are actually fairly nefarious.

So a couple of recent and very interesting pieces to add to the puzzle. First, I listened to an awesome podcast about

ICP by Wilson (http://intensivecarenetwork.com/wilson-monro-kellie-2-0/) which is an absolute MUST LISTEN to anyone in acute care.  One of those moments where all of a sudden someone shines a light in a dark corner you’d never really paid much attention to. Really, really cool and game-changing, at least certainly in the physiology model I play with in my head every time I deal with a patient who is genuinely sick.  In a nutshell, just to make sure everyone actually goes to listen to it, Wilson explains how you can get venous hypertension simply from increased cerebral blood flow… And we happen to be faced with one of the most common causes of increased CBF almost every day: hypoxia.  So when you are dealing with neurological injury (CVA/SAH/post-arrest), the danger of hypoxia (remember the concept of avoiding secondary injury of hypoxia, hypotension and hyperthermia?) lies not only in the obvious cellular lack of oxygen, but also that it is the most potent stimulus for increased CBF, and the main issue being that our venous system is simply not designed to accommodate that kind of traffic, resulting in venous hypertension without (yet) truly elevated ICP.

I’m also faced with the recurrent problem of having to be somewhat “rude” when not following suggestions from nephrology consultants in some of  my ICU patients, when they advise fluids or holding diuretics in patients with renal failure AND elevated venous pressures (as assessed by a large, non-varying IVC – in the absence of reversible causes such as tamponade, tension pneumo, etc…).  It isn’t their fault. They aren’t looking at the venous system (not bedside sonographers yet – “looks dry” on exam/gestalt is as much as you’ll get), and they don’t hold venous hypertension in high (or any) regard (yet, hopefully).

So I was totally psyched when, during a really cool conference (#BMBTL) organized by @EGLS_JFandMax, my highly esteemed colleague and friend Andre Denault (not yet on twitter…working on him) gave a talk – here is a segment:

And here is the article he is referring to:

Fluid+balance+and+acute+kidney+injury

So it isn’t like this is unknown, it simply isn’t at the forefront of our clinical mind-set, for the most part. Congestive renal failure and congestive cerebral failure are simply not things we routinely diagnose, though they MUST be just as as prevalent as congestive heart failure, which we all clearly believe in…

So just another angle to keep in mind, both when resuscitating and when managing patients with organ dysfunction of almost any sort…

 

Love to hear your thoughts!

…and if you like this kind of stuff, if you are an acute care doc, you’ll want to come to CCUS2015! http://wp.me/p1avUV-bG

Philippe

 

Jon-Emile Kenny (of the awesome heart-lung.org fame) says:

This is a great topic for review Philippe!

I have come across this problem, certainly on more than one occasion. I was first introduced to the idea of renal venous pressure and renal hemodynamics as a house-officer at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Dr. Jerome Lowenstein published work on this phenomenon as it pertained to ‘Minimal Change Syndrome.” He used to ‘wedge’ the renal vein and measure renal interstitial pressure in these patients and measured the response to diuresis. It was very enlightening and made me feel more comfortable given more diuretics in such patients. [Am J Med. 1981 Feb;70(2):227-33. Renal failure in minimal change nephrotic syndrome].

I am also glad that you bring up the cranial vault in this discussion, because I have often wondered if the encapsulated kidneys behave in a similar way. That is, as renal interstitial volume increases from edema, if there is some point on their compliance curve [like the cranium] where there is a very marked increase in renal interstitial pressure? I have found a few articles which loosely address this idea, but would be interested if anyone else knew of some. In such a situation, there would be a ‘vascular waterfall’ effect within the kidneys whereby the interstitial pressure supersedes the renal venous pressure [like West Zone II in the lungs]; then, renal blood flow would be driven by a gradient between MAP and renal interstitial pressure [not renal venous pressure]. I know of one paper that addresses this physiology in dogs, and finds the vascular ‘choke point’ to be in the renal venous system and not Bowman’s space.

What’s even more interesting, is that when renal interstitial pressure is elevated is that the kidney behaves in a sodium avid state [i.e. urine electrolytes will appear ‘pre-renal’] and this physiology has been known for at least a century!

Lancet. 1988 May 7;1(8593):1033-5. Raised venous pressure: a direct cause of renal sodium retention in oedema?

There is no good explanation as to why this occurs, but one I read is that the high renal interstitial pressure tends to collapse the afferent arteriole and the decrease in afferent arteriole trans-mural pressure which facilitates renin secretion [just like low blood pressure would]; but that would require a fairly high renal interstitial pressure unless the MAP was concomitantly low.

Again, what I must caution [and I’ve been personally wrong about this] is the reflex to give diuretics when seeing a ‘plump IVC’. When I was treating a woman with mild collagen-vascular-related pulmonary arterial hypertension, community-acquired pneumonia with a parapneumonic effusion and new acute renal failure, I assessed her IVC with ultrasound. It was plump an unvarying. I lobbied the nephrologist to try diruesis based on the aforementioned reasoning, but was very wrong. Her kidneys took a hit with lasix. What got her kidneys better was rehydration. In the end, what happened was her mild PAH raised her venous pressure and the hypoxemic vaso-constrction from her new pnuemonia only made that worse. Her right heart pressures, venous pressure and probably renal venous pressure were undoubtedly high. But I didn’t take into consideration her whole picture. She had a bad infection, had large insensible losses and had not been eating and drinking. She was hypovolemic, no doubt, despite her high right heart pressures. Fortunately, her pneumonia resolved and fluids brought her kidneys back to baseline.

Thanks again for another thought-provoking topic

 

dr.uthaler says:

hi, i am an anaesthesist / intensivist from austria. very interesting topic. at the esicm meeting last month in barcelona there was a very good session about hemodynamic monitoring focusing on the right heart and the venous system. the lectures about the guyton approach to fluid management were a big eye opener and certainly changed my approach to patients in the real life icu world. what i always do now is to correlate the cvp with the morphology of the right heart. lets say i have a cvp of 5 with a large right ventricle then i don’t hesitate to give diuretics. i really can’t understand how recent guidelines (surviving sepsis campaign) can still state a cvp of 10-12 as a target value ! new german s3 guidelines on fluid management at least advise not to use cvp for hemodynamic monitoring. guess who was against it? the german sepsis society, probably because they didn’t like to upset their friends from the surviving sepsis campaign group 🙂 let me send you a link to a very good article: Understanding venous return: Intensive Care Med. 2014 Oct;40(10):1564-6. doi: 10.1007/s00134-014-3379-4. Epub 2014 Jun 26. i went through some of the cited articles – awesome information! thanks for the interesting discussion and keep on posting !

Sounds like a good session!  I cannot understand why CVP remains in guidelines when there is clear, irrefutable evidence that it does not work to estimate either volume status or responsiveness.   As you say, other, more physiological information renders CVP irrelevant.  I have not used CVP in years. Thanks for the reference, will make sure to check it out!

thanks for reading!

Philippe

October 8, 2014

Bedside ultrasound for Hospitalists: A Must! #Hospitalist, #FOAMed, #FOAMus

Hi, so here is a quick little overview on why anyone taking care of hospitalized patients unequivocally need to use bedside ultrasound in a daily, integrated fashion, even if they don’t realize it yet.

It isn’t just for the flashy spot diagnoses in the ICU or the ER, but really for daily rounds, assessing common cardiac, respiratory, renal, gastrointestinal and even neurological syndromes.

Love to hear from any hospitalists or medical consultants out there about their use of bedside ultrasound!

Cheers

Philippe

April 29, 2014

The Effort-Variation Index – a conceptual tool for IVC ultrasound. #FOAMed, #FOAMcc, #FOAMus

I recently had a colleague ask me to put on a graph the way I like to assess the IVC, at least conceptually.  I posted about this a few weeks ago (http://wp.me/p1avUV-8E), so I tried to come up with something useful for clinicians, correlating IVC variation with respiratory effort.

A useful concept to visualize this is the Effort-Variation Index (EVI). To obtain this, start by looking at a Frank-Starling curve, and broadly categorizing patients as being on the “empty” side, the “normal” or the “full” side.

Frank-Starling:Physiological

 

Next, if you look at how these groups would plot on a graph correlating IVC variation to respiratory effort, which, physiologically, would be the change in pleural pressure (delta Ppl), you should conceptually see something like this:

 

EVI

 

Note that this has not been validated, nor does it contain any values. It is simply, for now, a useful mental construct to understand the physiology behind the variability, and is useful when elaborating each patient’s physiological profile in the mind of the bedside clinician. Along any horizontal line, the IVC variation would be the same. You can therefore see that, given enough respiratory effort, a “full” patient could appear “normal” or even “empty.” Hence interpreting IVC variation without understanding this would lead to potential error.

 

Love to hear some thoughts and comments!

 

Philippe

March 19, 2014

NEJM: The Septic Shock Issue…groundbreaking or same old same old? #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

Ok, so it was pretty cool to see an NEJM issue basically dedicated to septic shock management, I must admit. But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

So here is where they are: http://www.nejm.org, and fully available for now.

I won’t go through all the details and numbers, after all they are in the papers, so let’s just analyze them from two principles:

a. the N=1 principle – how was therapy individualized?

and

b. was there any integrated monitoring of the therapeutic goals?

…and we’ll conclude by looking at the potential practice-changing potential of each of these studies.

So first of all,

High vs Low BP Target in Septic Shock, by Asfar et al.

So basically a negative study except for two findings, the increased incidence of afib in the high target group and the decreased need for renal replacement therapy among chronic hypertensives in the high target group.

so N=1 is not really revealed:

“Refractoriness to fluid resuscitation was defined as a lack of response to the administration of 30 ml of normal saline per kilogram of body weight or of colloids or was determined according to a clinician’s assessment of inadequate hemodynamic results on the basis of values obtained during right-heart catheterization, pulse-pressure measurement, stroke-volume measurement, or echocardiography (although study investigators did not record the values for these variables).”

So lets just hope that the variability evens itself out between the groups, since we don’t really know. The numbers don’t really tell the tale, because the average fluids received (10 liters over 5 days) could mean one patient got 15 and one got 5 – although let’s trust they followed the French Fluid Resus protocol…

So the atrial fibrillation makes total sense – more B agonism should result in that, and the decreased renal failure also does.

As the authors note, the actual BP averages were higher than planned. For those of us practicing critical care, we know most nurses titrating prefer having a little bit of extra BP – even when I prescribe MAP 65, I usually see the 70 or so unless I make a point to tell them. Understandable. They also note the underpowered-ness of their own study, but I think it is still worth looking at their results.

So…bottom line?  I think it’s a great study for a couple of reasons.

The first is to remind us to pay a little more N=1 attention to the chronic hypertensives, and that it is probably worth aiming for slightly higher MAPs.

The second, debunking the myth of “levophed, leave’em dead” (which I heard throughout residency at McGill), and the concept of doing everything (ie juicing patient into a michelin man) in order to avoid the “dreaded and dangerous” vasopressors. So really I think an alternative way to conclude this study is that it isn’t harmful to have higher doses of vasopressors. I think this is actually a really good study on which to base assessment of more aggressive vasopressor support vs fluid resuscitation, in the right patients.

It would have been interesting to have echo data on those who developed a fib – were they patients who had normal to hyperdynamic LVs who in truth did not need B agonism at all and would have been fine with phenylephrine?  Perhaps…

Cool. I like it.

Next:

Albumin Replacement in Patients with Severe Sepsis or Septic Shock, by Caironi et al. The ALBIOS study (a Gattinoni crew)

So basically showed no difference, so pretty much a solid italian remake of the SAFE study in a sense, confirming that albumin is indeed safe overall, and may be better in those with shock.  As the authors note, mortality was low, organ failure was low, so study power a little low as well. Note the mean lactates in the 2’s at baseline. The albumin levels of the crytalloid only gorup were also not that low, low to mid 20’s, whereas I often see 15-20 range in my patients, especially if I inherit them after a few days, as I do use albumin myself a fair bit. They also used a target albumin level, not albumin as a resuscitation fluid purely.

In my mind the benefit of albumin would be greatest in those with significant capillary leak, particularly those with intra-abdominal and pulmonary pathology. It would have been nice to see a subgroup analysis where extravascular lung water was looked at (especially coming from a Gattinoni crew!).

Another interesting thing would have been to know the infusion time of the albumin, since animal data tells us that a 3hr infusion decreases extravasation and improves vascular filling vs shorter infusion times. I routinely insist on 3hr infusion per unit, which sometimes results in 9-12hr infusions, almost albumin drips!

Bottom line?

I like it. Reinforces that albumin is safe, so makes me even more comfortable in using it in the patients where my N=1 analysis tells me to be wary of third-spacing. Also the fact that they used 20% – in Canada we have 100cc bottles of 25% for the most part – is nice, since the SAFE data used 4%.

Next!

A Randomized Trial of Protocol-Based Care for Early Septic Shock – The ProCESS Trial.

So right off that bat my allergy to protocols flares up, so I’ll try to remain impartial. It just goes against the N=1 principle. The absolutely awesome thing about protocols is that it primes the team/system to react – so clearly protocols are better than no-protocol-at-all, but strict adherence would clearly not fit everyone, so that some built-in flexibility should be present.

This being said, the ProCESS study is really interesting, for a number of reasons. They have three groups, and compare basically (1) Rivers’ EGDT to (2) their own protocol (see the S2 appendix online) which gives a little more flexibility and (3) “usual care”.  Net result is that all are pretty equal, no change in mortality. As the authors note, their mortality was low, so again may not have been able to detect a difference.

So, what does this mean. To me it’s a little worrisome because I doubt that the “usual care” represents the true usual care found in EDs/ICUs all over the world, so I am concerned that many docs will use this as a reason to justify not changing their practice, similarly to many I’ve heard say they don’t need to cool anymore after the TTM trial. Human nature for some I guess.

Bottom line? You don’t have to follow EGDT if you’re conscientious and reassessing your patient frequently and have done all the other good things (abx, source control, etc). I think that’s really important because giving blood (see my post about S1P) to those with hb > 70 and giving dobutamine to patients with potentially normal or hyper dynamic LVs never made physiological sense to me, and the problem with a multi intervention study such as EGDT is that you can’t tease out the good from the bad or the neutral. Again, studies such as EGDT are pivotal in changing practice and raising awareness, so this is not a knock against a necessary study, just to highlight the point that each study is a step along the way of refining our resuscitation, and the important thing is to move on. In fact, the reason that this is a negative study is probably due to the improvement in “usual care” that EGDT brought along.

Conclusion: No new ground broken, but these studies do make me feel more confident and validated in continuing to not do certain things (strict EGDT) and  doing others (albumin and earlier use of vasopressors).

Kudos to all investigators.

 

let me know what you think!

 

P

 

January 10, 2014

Transfusion and the Glycocalyx: John strikes again! #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

A great surprise this morning:  a comment from John. Yup, THE John. So taking a page out of Scott’s book, I thought it would be worth sharing with everyone as its own post, as opposed to just a comment. I think this is must-read material for everyone.

So without any further adue:

“I thought I might add some quirky ideas to your discussion.

We are now getting familiar with the concept of endothelial cells covered by a surface glycocalyx layer, that forms part of the barrier and mechano-sensing functions of the blood-tissue interface. We have discussed in some detail, the role of the glycocalyx in preserving endothelial integrity. I am gonna try and add a bit more spice into the whole transfusion drama.

In recent times, we have started talking a lot about a bioactive phospholipid called sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), as a crucial element in preserving vascular barrier integrity by ‘protecting’ the Glycolcalyx. (Most geeky papers on TRALI and other transfusion related complications do mention it).

Because albumin is one of the primary carriers of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), it is possible that S1P, acting via S1P1 receptors, plays the primary role in stabilizing the endothelial glycocalyx. Infact, antagonism of S1P1 receptors have been shown to cause widespread shedding of the glycocalyx, as evidenced by increased serum concentrations of Heparan sulphate and Chondroitin sulphate. (This might probably be one of the mechanisms how albumin is glycocalyx friendly).

RBC transfusions are a double edged sword…..especially in situations of acute anemia as in post hemorrhagic situations ( major GI bleed or trauma.)….I totally agree with you in that the two are conceptually very similar.

Erythrocytes have been identified as an important buffer for sphingosine-1-phosphate . In mice, depletion of plasma S1P by genetic inactivation of S1P synthesizing enzymes (sphingosine kinases 1 and 2) elicits profound pulmonary vascular leak, which can be reversed by restoring circulating S1P via RBC transfusion.

In humans, hematocrit (Hct) predicts plasma S1P levels. There also seems to be a dynamic equlibrium between SIP levels of the plasma, and the circulating RBCs. It has been demonstrated that in anemic individuals, plasma S1P levels are not uniformly restored by RBC transfusion. Rather, the age of the RBC unit at the time of transfusion tended to negatively correlate with the ability of RBC transfusion to replenish plasma S1P. During storage, the S1P content of human RBC markedly declines, likely due to enzymatic degradation. Because erythrocytes serve as a buffer for circulating S1P, aged RBC with low S1P content may be incapable of restoring plasma S1P levels and may actually remove S1P from plasma, which in turn could contribute to increased endothelial permeability, capillary leak, and infiltration of inflammatory cells.

I hope this partly answers your question as to how the glycocalyx may be impacted by inappropriate and irresponsible transfusion triggers. I agree that these are all very novel ideas and as such, exist in the realm of experimental clinical physiology, but my gut tells me that the delicate Glycocalyx may hold the clue to a lot of answers to questions that have plagued us for a long long time!

Cheers,
John from India…”

So first of all, thank you very, very much for reading and taking the time to comment and enlighten us.

As John says, this is still in the realm of experimental physiology, but I think there are a lot of situations we are faced with, perhaps grey zone areas where we debate two potential therapeutic avenues, where we can use some of this data. We might debate giving that extra bit of fluid, or debate crystalloid vs albumin, or blood or no blood with an Hb of exactly 70, and I think we have to start weighing in some of this physiological data, even if it isn’t “evidence-based-by-RTC” to help guide these decisions.

The more I look into it the more it seems that our interventions – particularly fluid resuscitation, needs to be reassessed from the ground up both in nature, quantity and rate of infusion while measuring glycocalyx damage – e.g. biomarkers such as S1P, heparan or chondroitin sulfate, etc…

I’ve previously posted and podcasted about my general strategy for fluid resuscitation, and I am definitely in the process of revising it, still unsure what is best. I’d love to hear how John resuscitates his patients…

thanks!

Philippe

Other Comments:

Mystery John has an uncanny ability to describe complex physiology in the simplest way possible. I am very interested in digging more into his predictions of the possibility of aged erythrocytes removing S1P from circulating plasma.

Dr. John, if you’re out there, could you point us all to some of these studies you’ve mentioned? Any good S1P review papers you’d recommend to those, like me, who are S1P novices?

Thanks for your input! It was a pleasure.

Warm regards,

Derek

Thank you Derek, for the kind comments…. I think the concept of S1P is still in the process of evolving and assuming a definitive shape, so a good review might be hard to stumble across.

A good research article which cites some excellent references might be —

Synergistic Effect of Anemia and Red Blood Cells Transfusion on Inflammation and Lung Injury
— Anping Dong et al. (It is open access at http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/924042).

Hope this helps……

John.

Here is the article:

924042

P

November 27, 2013

A Paradigm shift: re-thinking sepsis, and maybe shock in general… #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

Thomas Kuhn, physicist and philosopher, in his groundbreaking and science changing text, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, states that:

“Successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of a mature science.”

In other words, a science has growing pains and is bound to have a fair bit of debate and controversy, until a new paradigm becomes dominant.  I think that there is a current – in part prompted by the power of socio-professional media which has allowed minds to connect and knowledge to spread – that will see many of the things that are now “Standard of Care” out the door.

So first of all, the following are must-listens, the first a lecture by Paul Marik, whom I have had the chance to collaborate with in the last years and respect greatly, on knowledge, experience, and even more on his refusal to take anything for granted and being in a seemingly-constant quest for the improvement of medicine.

The second link is Scott Weingart’s take on it, which I think is equally awesome.

I think Paul is pushing the envelope in an essential way, and Scott does a fantastic job of seeing or putting it in perspective. Enjoy:

http://emcrit.org/podcasts/paul-marik-fluids-sepsis/

http://emcrit.org/podcasts/fluids-severe-sepsis/

My (very) humble opinion on this is a rather simple, almost philosophical one:  why are we seemingly obsessed with treating a predominantly vasodilatory pathology with large amounts of volume?  I’ve said this in previous posts and podcasts, but this, in my opinion, is largely cultural and dogmatic. “Levophed – Leave’em dead” is something I heard as a student and resident, and came to take for granted that I should give lots of fluid in hopes of avoiding pressors… But there’s no evidence at all to support this.  The common behavior of waiting until someone has clearly failed volume resuscitation before starting pressors befuddles me (think how long it takes to get two liters of fluid in most ERs…).  If I was in that bed, I’d much rather spend an hour a bit “hypertensive” (eg with a MAP above 70) than a bit hypotensive while awaiting final confirmation that I do, in fact, need pressors.

I strongly suspect that it’s just a matter of improving vascular tone, giving some volume (which may be that 3 liter mark), and ensuring that the microcirculation/glycocalyx is as undisturbed as possible. Now when I say it may be the 3 liters, I firmly believe this will not apply to everyone, and that it will be 1 liter in some, and 4 in others, and that a recipe approach will be better than nothing, but likely harm some.

I think that blind (eg no echo assessment) of shock is absurd, and for anyone to propose an algorithm that does not include point-of-care ultrasound is only acceptable if they are in the process of acquiring the skill with the intention of modifying their approach in the very near future.

The whole microcirculation/glycocalyx is absolutely fascinating stuff, and undoubtedly will come under scrutiny in the next few years, and it is definitely something I will focus on in upcoming posts & podcasts. Our resuscitation has been macro-focused, and certainly it is time to take a look at the little guys, who might turn out to have most of the answers. For instance, there is some remarkable data on HDAC inhibitors (common valproic acid) and their salutatory effects in a number of acute conditions such as hemorrhagic shock (Dr. Alam) which have nothing to do with macro-resuscitation, and everything to do with cell signaling and apoptosis. Hmmm…

please share your thoughts!

thanks

Philippe

November 14, 2013

Bedside Ultrasound: The Sluggish IVC – something to look for… #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

So take a look at this:

I’m sure most experienced bedside sonographers come across this all the time.  For those who are starting out, and until now have just been looking at size and variation, take a second to look at the flow.  You can actually see the flow stop and start, which tells you your cardiac output is bad.  It could be bad because of the RV, the LV, the pericardium, the tension pneumothorax, anything, but it’s bad.  So just in case you were only gonna look at the IVC, keep looking! You will find something abnormal downstream, perhaps that you can do something about (not fluids, though).

I have seen this disappear and clear up with – when possible – correction of the problem, back to the normally anechoic IVC we usually see.

thanks!

Philippe

ps note there is also a mirror artifact in the right lower portion of the field, making it look as though there are two beating hearts.

October 18, 2013

CCUS 2013 Lectures – #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

This past may we had an amazing two day conference, the theme of which was challenging dogmatic practice and myths in acute care medicine.  Many of the lectures are now available to watch on our website at http://www.ccusinstitute.org/e-Store.asp?method=evideos#, you need to be a member to access – which is free, just register.

 

Lectures on bedside ultrasound, shock, ECMO in the ED, physiology and a lot of really, really good stuff.

 

We will be adding more in the next weeks!

 

Thanks!

 

PR

October 18, 2013

Bedside Ultrasound Clip Quiz #3 – #FOAMed, #FOAMcc

This is what you see on the anterior chest of your patient:

What can you conclude?

scroll below for answers…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lung sliding and B lines

The notable findings are:

a. lung sliding – this indicates that there is no pneumothorax in the area you are scanning.

b. there are B lines – this indicates that there is interstitial edema – this has no etiological information and must be coupled with the rest of the ultrasound and clinical examination to make a diagnosis. It could represent CHF, pneumonia, non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema, or any other interstitial process.