Demands and requests for 'inappropriate' or 'inadvisable' treatments at the end of life: what do you do at 2 o'clock in the morning when ?

In an era when healthcare has become increasingly complex and patient expectations are higher than ever before, we can find the decision-making process for patients, potentially at the end of their lives, increasingly difficult. In the shift from paternalism to patient choice, we can struggle to know what to do when faced with a patient, their family, or both requesting or demanding inadvisable, inappropriate, or futile treatments. It can feel as if we are being asked to subject patients to intrusions and interventions that 'just feel wrong'. In this article, we aim to look at how ethical frameworks, legal statute, case law, and professional guidance, as they apply in the UK, interact when we make these decisions, and we discuss some of the conflicts and challenges that such guidance pose.

A fatal case of amphetamine induced ischaemic colitis.

Amphetamine induced ischaemic colitis is an exceedingly rare presentation of amphetamine toxicity. The cases reported in the literature have described mild or transient disease. We present a fatal case of ischaemic colitis induced by amphetamine use in a 44-year-old woman who presented in extremis after a cardiac arrest en route to the emergency department. A short history of headache, abdominal pain, vomiting and agitation preceded her admission. Imaging revealed changes consistent with ischaemic colitis. Emergency laparotomy revealed widespread colonic necrosis necessitating a subtotal colectomy. Despite aggressive resuscitation and inotropic support from arrival, the patient deteriorated intraoperatively and died in the immediate postoperative period. Histology showed arterial type ischaemia/reperfusion injury of the area supplied by the superior mesenteric artery. The patient's serum amphetamine level was 0.52mg/l (peak therapeutic levels <0.2mg/l). The postmortem examination concluded that amphetamines were the likely cause of the vasospasm, leading to profound colonic ischaemia.

Assessing fluid responsiveness by stroke volume variation in mechanically ventilated patients with severe sepsis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Our hypothesis was that stroke volume variation during mechanical ventilation of the lungs would allow accurate prediction and monitoring of changes in cardiac index in response to fluid loading in patients with severe sepsis. METHODS: This was a prospective clinical study in a university hospital. Ten mechanically ventilated patients with severe sepsis or septic shock were given fluid loading with 500 mL 10% hydroxyethylstarch 200/0.5 over 30 min. Before and after fluid loading pulmonary arterial occlusion pressure and central venous pressure were measured. Intrathoracic blood volume index, stroke volume variation and cardiac index were measured by the transpulmonary thermodilution technique. After verifying normal distribution of the data (skewness < 1.0) the paired t-test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: After fluid loading stroke volume variation decreased significantly, whereas central venous pressure, pulmonary arterial occlusion pressure, intrathoracic blood volume index and cardiac index increased significantly. Changes of cardiac index in response to fluid loading were correlated to baseline values of stroke volume variation (r = 0.64, P = 0.02) and intrathoracic blood volume index (r = -0.73, P = 0.009). Changes in cardiac index were significantly correlated to percentage changes in stroke volume variation (r = -0.65, P < 0.001) and changes in intrathoracic blood volume index (r = 0.52, P = 0.002), whereas changes in cardiac index revealed no significant correlation to changes in central venous pressure (r = 0.28, P = 0.07) and changes in pulmonary arterial occlusion pressure (r = 0.29, P = 0.06). CONCLUSIONS: Measuring stroke volume variation may be a useful way of guiding fluid therapy in ventilated patients with severe sepsis because it allows estimation of preload and prediction of cardiac index changes in response to fluid loading.