Every year there are 6 million visits to the Emergency Department (ED) for chest pain, and approximately 2 million hospital admissions each year.1 This is approximately about 10% of ED visits and 25% of hospital admissions with 85% of these admissions receiving a diagnosis of a non-ischemic etiology to their chest pain (CP).2 This over triage has enormous economic implications for the US health care system estimated at $8 billion in annual costs.
When talking about procedural sedation and analgesia, our goal is to minimize pain and anxiety, with the appropriate agent that matches the needs of our patient and the clinical scenario. So what are some qualities of this “ideal agent?”
In a perfect world, it would have:
There was recently a great study published in the American Journal of Cardiology (2012) by Sharifi et al1, questioning whether we should be considering tPA in patients other than those patients with massive pulmonary embolism (PE)? You know the big “Saddle Embolus” we all fear? Well it turns out this is only about 5% of all PEs.
Should we be considering tPA in patients with sub-massive PEs?