SAEM Clinical Image Series: Blisters, Bullae, and Badness

A 3-year-old female with a history of epilepsy presents with a rash that began one day ago. The patient started becoming fussy four days ago, saying, “I don’t feel good,” and not wanting to play outside with her siblings or finish her meals. Family noticed the patient rubbing her eyes frequently and crying when she went to the bathroom. She felt warm so they gave her Tylenol and Motrin at home. Yesterday, they noticed a rash was starting to develop with itchy, painful red spots. This morning, the rash progressed to involve some blisters on the face, chest, and back.

Medications include Tylenol, Motrin, and lamotrigine, which was started by her neurologist three weeks ago. Family history is significant for epilepsy on the father’s side of the family.

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By Amanda Gonzalez, MD|2021-01-05T13:23:34-08:00Jan 4, 2021|Academic, SAEM Clinical Images|

SAEM Clinical Image Series: The Hemorrhaging Bifurcated Tongue

A 26-year-old male with no past medical history presented to the emergency department for tongue bleeding for one day. Five days prior he had an elective cosmetic tongue bifurcation completed out-of-state. About two hours prior to arrival, he had been using a swish-and-spit saltwater rinse when he felt a suture break. Ever since he has had copious bleeding, reportedly filling his sink at home with blood. Additionally, he had about 250 milliliters of blood, including large clots, in a container in the emergency department. He denied using any blood thinners. There was no syncope, dizziness, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, pain of the tongue, or numbness of the tongue. He had some difficulty speaking but said it was due to needing to retrain his bifurcated tongue.

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By Maria Dharini Arulraja, MD|2020-12-20T20:16:29-08:00Dec 21, 2020|Academic, Emergency Medicine, ENT, SAEM Clinical Images|

SAEM Clinical Image Series: Shortness of Breath

A 60-year-old female presented to the emergency department (ED) for respiratory distress. Emergency medical services reports that the patient was in respiratory distress upon arrival, slowly becoming unresponsive en-route. They started the patient on continuous positive airway pressure, but she lost consciousness with oxygen saturation in the thirties and they switched to bag valve mask (BVM) ventilation, which improved saturations up to 100 percent. Narcan was administered without improvement as she was on narcotics following bronchoscopy earlier today at an outside hospital.

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By Najee Abou-Arraj, MD|2021-01-18T19:30:33-08:00Dec 21, 2020|Academic, Emergency Medicine, Pulmonary, SAEM Clinical Images|

SplintER Series: More Than Just a Shoulder Dislocation?

$Anterior inferior shoulder dislocation with a fracture of the greater tuberosity of the humerus.$

An 80-year-old female presents to the Emergency Department with right shoulder pain, deformity, and decreased range of motion after falling down half a flight of stairs. AP and Y-views of the right shoulder were obtained (Images courtesy of Kenneth Chang, DO).

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By Kenneth Chang, DO|2020-12-14T12:41:40-08:00Dec 16, 2020|Expert Peer Reviewed (Clinical), Orthopedic, SplintER|

SAEM Clinical Image Series: Oral Trauma and Mass

A 38-year-old African American male without a significant past medical history presented with an oral mass. He was struck on the mouth by a wrench handle about two prior. Since then he has had a growing mass originating from the gum of his left front upper teeth. He is no longer able to eat solid foods and has to use a straw for all oral intake. The patient denies fevers, chest pain, shortness of breath, and weight loss.

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By Han Wei Zheng, MD|2020-12-11T15:18:37-08:00Dec 14, 2020|Academic, ENT, SAEM Clinical Images|

SplintER Series: My Knee, Again!

posterior tibiofemoral dislocation knee dislocation

A 61-year-old F presents to the ED from the orthopedic clinic with acute right knee pain. She endorses that while a physical exam was being performed, she had sudden onset knee pain. Denies any trauma to the knee, radiation of pain, numbness, tingling, or swelling. The above knee radiographs were obtained (Images courtesy of John Kiel, DO).

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By Parwaiz Rashidzada, MD|2020-12-04T20:18:29-08:00Dec 9, 2020|Expert Peer Reviewed (Clinical), Orthopedic, SplintER|

ACEP E-QUAL: ACEP Non-STEMI Clinical Policy

In 2018, the American College of Physicians (ACEP) released a Clinical Policy with management recommendations for patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with concern for non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Dr. Jason Woods hosted an episode of the ACEP E-QUAL Network podcast highlighting key aspects of the new policy. Dr. Woods was joined by lead writer Dr. Christian Tomaszewski from the University of California San Diego, and Dr. Michael Ross, Director of the Chest Pain Center at Emory University. Below are show notes reviewing the recommendations and the process involved in creating the clinical policy.

How is a clinical policy different than a practice guideline?

The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC), a public resource initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), provides rules and frameworks for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. ACEP refers to clinical practice guidelines in Emergency Medicine (EM) as policies to denote the more prescriptive design process.

What was the process of drafting the policy?

Development of the 2018 ACEP NSTEMI Clinical Policy was a 2-year “labor of love.” Writers, methodologies, and committee members were required to be free from both financial and intellectual conflict of interest.

The clinical policy is a result of a systematic review and critical analysis of available medical literature. Clinical studies were graded on robustness, design, and class of evidence according to the ACEP policy development process which includes internal and external review.

Recommendations were categorized as reflecting high clinical certainty (Level A), moderate clinical certainty (Level B), or mixed clinical certainty (Level C) due to the heterogeneity of results, unclear effect magnitude, bias, among other factors.

What questions did the policy address?

Four critical questions were decided by consensus methods to address the evaluation and management of adult patients presenting to the ED with concern for NSTEMI.

1) If ST-elevation myocardial infarction is excluded, can a combination of bedside and laboratory evaluation in the ED identify patients at low risk for major adverse cardiac events (MACE)?
Level B recommendation: History, ECG, Age, Risk Factors, Troponin (HEART) score < 3 can be used as a clinical prediction tool for a 30-day MACE miss rate between 0-2%.
Level C recommendation: Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) score can be used to predict risk of 30-day MACE.

2) Can repeat Troponin testing in the ED be used to identify patients at low risk for MACE?
Level C recommendations:

- Conventional troponin testing at hour 0 and 3 in low risk (HEART score < 3) patients can predict and acceptable low risk for 30-day MACE.
- A single high-sensitivity troponin less than the detectable limit on arrival to the ED or negative serial high-sensitivity troponin at hour 0 and 2 is predictive of a low rate of MACE.
- Patients deemed to be low risk with a non-ischemic ECG and negative high-sensitivity troponin at 0 and 2 hours can be considered low risk for 30-day MACE, allowing for accelerated discharge from the ED.

3) In patients who have been ruled out for acute coronary syndromes (ACS), does advanced cardiac provocative testing prior to discharge from the ED reduce MACE?
Level B recommendation: Do not routinely use advanced cardiac testing in low-risk patients who have been ruled out for ACS to further reduce 30-day MACE.
Level C recommendation: Arrange follow-up in 1-2 weeks for low-risk patients in whom ACS has been ruled out. If unable to arrange follow-up, consider observation and advanced testing prior to discharge.

4) Should patients with NSTEMI receive antiplatelet therapy in addition to aspirin in the ED?
Level C recommendation: P2Y12 inhibitors and glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors can be given in the ED or delayed until cardiac catheterization.

What questions remain?

The clinical policy does not address the “delta factor” involved in assessing changes to the cardiac marker levels that may be seen with repeat testing at set time points.
Duration of pain was not discretely addressed, and differences in real-world practice can exist depending on whether the time of onset or time of presentation is considered for defining repeat testing and observation length.
Shared decision-making was not factored into the selection of management steps.

Important points for consideration:

The 2018 ACEP Clinical Policy for NSTEMI was written for the evaluation of patients with suspicion for ACS who presented with chest pain. It does not apply to those presentations of ACS that are considered atypical in nature.

Read a more in-depth summary of the ACEP Clinical Policy on ALiEM.