Those of us who are a bit longer in the tooth have spent most of our careers not scanning everyone who sustained a head injury on warfarin, but in 2104 NICE published guidance suggesting we do just that.

At times, with the huge burden we place on our radiology services, it is difficult not think we're over doing things with all of these scan requests, especially when the patient has no adverse symptoms or signs. Fortunately the AHEAD study has just been published which looks at thousands of patients presenting to ED's on warfarin with a head injury.

The paper is open access and deserves a full read, in this podcast I run through some of the main parts of the study and have a think about how it might impact on our practice.

This is just one part of the puzzle on the management of patients with anticoagulated head injuries, we had a look previously on what to do if you perform a scan and that appears normal in our Anticoagulation, Head Injury & Delayed Bleeds Podcast.

Hope you enjoy the podcast and we'd love to hear any of your feedback on social media or on the website.

Simon

A lot of our podcasts have focussed on prognostic factors in arrest to help with the decision making of continuing or stopping resuscitation in cardiac arrest. There would appear to be a huge variety in practice as to when resuscitation is ceased, and in that way having explicit guidance to unify practice can at times seem appealing.

In this episode we have a look at a recent paper covering the topic, it suggests a group of patients accounting for nearly half of cardiac arrests, that upon recognition could safely lead us to cease efforts.

Have a listen to the podcast and let us know what you think!

References

Early Identification of Patients With Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest With No Chance of Survival and Consideration for Organ Donation. Jabre P. Ann Intern Med. 2016

Resuscitation Council; Recognition of Life Extinct

Happy New Year!!!

The publishing world seems to have wound down a bit for the festive break, but 4 papers caught out eye that can add some further context to practice in the Resus Room.

Firstly we take a look at two papers looking at the conversion from non-shockable to shockable rhythms in cardiac arrest, both the likelihood and the associated prognosis.

Next up we have a look at a paper focussing on Cerebral Performance Categories (CPC's) and their reliability as an outcome for studies.

Lastly we have a look at the recent Cochrane Review on video laryngoscopy vs direct laryngoscopy for adult intubation.

Thanks again to our sponsors ADPRAC for supporting the podcast.

References & Further Reading

Age-specific differences in prognostic significance of rhythmconversion from initial non-shockable to shockable rhythm and subsequent shock delivery in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Funada A. Resuscitation. 2016

Conversion to shockable rhythms during resuscitation and survivalfor out-of hospital cardiac arrest. Wah W. Am J Emerg Med. 2016 

Inter-rater reliability of post-arrest cerebral performance category(CPC) scores. Grossestreuer AV. Resuscitation. 2016

Videolaryngoscopy versus direct laryngoscopy for adult patients requiring tracheal intubation. Lewis SR. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016