Point-of-Care Echocardiography in the Difficult-to-Image Patient in the ICU: A Narrative Review.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this narrative review was to address common obstacles encountered in the ICU to acquiring quality and interpretable images using point-of-care echocardiography. DATA SOURCES: Detailed searches were performed using PubMed and Ovid Medline using medical subject headings and keywords on topics related to patient positioning, IV echo contrast, alternative subcostal views, right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) hemodynamics, and point-of-care transesophageal echocardiography. Articles known to the authors were also selected based on expert opinion. STUDY SELECTION: Articles specific to patient positioning, IV echo contrast, alternative subcostal views, RVOT hemodynamics, and point-of-care transesophageal echocardiography were considered. DATA EXTRACTION: One author screened titles and extracted relevant data while two separate authors independently reviewed selected articles. DATA SYNTHESIS: Impediments to acquiring quality and interpretable images in critically ill patients are common. Notably, body habitus, intra-abdominal hypertension, dressings or drainage tubes, postoperative sternotomies, invasive mechanical ventilation, and the presence of subcutaneous emphysema or lung hyperinflation are commonly encountered obstacles in transthoracic image acquisition in the ICU. Despite these obstacles, the bedside clinician may use obstacle-specific maneuvers to enhance image acquisition. These may include altering patient positioning, respiratory cycle timing, expanding the subcostal window to include multilevel short-axis views for use in the assessment of RV systolic function and hemodynamics, coronal transhepatic view of the inferior vena cava, and finally point-of-care transesophageal echocardiography. CONCLUSIONS: Despite common obstacles to point-of-care echocardiography in critically ill patients, the beside sonographer may take an obstacle-specific stepwise approach to enhance image acquisition in difficult-to-image patients.

Electric impedance tomography-guided PEEP titration reduces mechanical power in ARDS: a randomized crossover pilot trial.

BACKGROUND: In patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome undergoing mechanical ventilation, positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) can lead to recruitment or overdistension. Current strategies utilized for PEEP titration do not permit the distinction. Electric impedance tomography (EIT) detects and quantifies the presence of both collapse and overdistension. We investigated whether using EIT-guided PEEP titration leads to decreased mechanical power compared to high-PEEP/FiO2 tables. METHODS: A single-center, randomized crossover pilot trial comparing EIT-guided PEEP selection versus PEEP selection using the High-PEEP/FiO2 table in patients with moderate-severe acute respiratory distress syndrome. The primary outcome was the change in mechanical power after each PEEP selection strategy. Secondary outcomes included changes in the 4 × driving pressure + respiratory rate (4 ΔP, + RR index) index, driving pressure, plateau pressure, PaO2/FiO2 ratio, and static compliance. RESULTS: EIT was consistently associated with a decrease in mechanical power compared to PEEP/FiO2 tables (mean difference - 4.36 J/min, 95% CI - 6.7, - 1.95, p = 0.002) and led to lower values in the 4ΔP + RR index (- 11.42 J/min, 95% CI - 19.01, - 3.82, p = 0.007) mainly driven by a decrease in the elastic-dynamic power (- 1.61 J/min, - 2.99, - 0.22, p = 0.027). The elastic-static and resistive powers were unchanged. Similarly, EIT led to a statistically significant change in set PEEP (- 2 cmH2O, p = 0.046), driving pressure, (- 2.92 cmH2O, p = 0.003), peak pressure (- 6.25 cmH2O, p = 0.003), plateau pressure (- 4.53 cmH2O, p = 0.006), and static respiratory system compliance (+ 7.93 ml/cmH2O, p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with moderate-severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, EIT-guided PEEP titration reduces mechanical power mainly through a reduction in elastic-dynamic power. Trial registration This trial was prospectively registered on Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03793842) on January 4th, 2019.

A 44-Year-Old Woman with Dyspnea and Hemoptysis in the Setting of Remote Bariatric Surgery.

CASE PRESENTATION: A 44-year-old woman was transferred to the ED from an outside hospital because of hemoptysis and concern for left-sided pulmonary infiltrate with associated pleural effusion. The patient presented to this outside hospital multiple times over the past 3 months because of left-sided shoulder pain, diffuse myalgias, and supraventricular tachycardia. On her third visit, she was found to have a left-sided pleural effusion and underwent diagnostic and therapeutic thoracentesis; 1.5 L of fluid was removed. Fluid studies reportedly demonstrated an exudative pleural effusion with negative bacterial cultures and no evidence of neoplastic process. The patient was referred to the Rheumatology Department by the outside hospital for suspected underlying autoimmune process. In the months leading up to her current presentation, the patient had been prescribed one prednisone burst and two prednisone tapers. She was then placed on a regimen of 10 mg prednisone daily and 200 mg hydroxychloroquine bid by her primary care doctor. This was tapered by the Rheumatology Department such that the patient was on 7.5 mg of prednisone daily on arrival to this ED. Rheumatologic workup until this point revealed only low titer (1:80) positive antinuclear antibody. Prior to these ED visits, the patient had been otherwise healthy with only a history of a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass 17 years earlier. Aside from recent daily low-dose prednisone use, the patient did not have other preexisting immune compromise or risk factors for aspiration such as seizure disorder, chronic alcohol use, or cognitive impairment. Before her transfer, the patient experienced foul-smelling, maroon-colored hemoptysis as well as anemia that required a higher level of care. On arrival to the ED, she was in acute hypoxic respiratory failure. The patient was intubated emergently and was admitted to the medical critical care unit for further treatment.

An 80-Year-Old Man With Persistent Enterococcus faecalis Bacteremia.

CASE PRESENTATION: An 80-year old man presented to the ED after being found down in his home. He had gone to the restroom to perform straight catheterization, as he normally does for his enlarged prostate, and was found slumped over and confused. On arrival to the ED, he was found to be in atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response, febrile, and hypotensive. CT imaging of his head, chest, and abdomen-pelvis was obtained. He was started on broad-spectrum antibiotics and norepinephrine infusion for presumed urinary septic shock and admitted to the medical critical care unit for further management.

Deep learning to detect acute respiratory distress syndrome on chest radiographs: a retrospective study with external validation.

BACKGROUND: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common, but under-recognised, critical illness syndrome associated with high mortality. An important factor in its under-recognition is the variability in chest radiograph interpretation for ARDS. We sought to train a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) to detect ARDS findings on chest radiographs. METHODS: CNNs were pretrained on 595 506 radiographs from two centres to identify common chest findings (eg, opacity and effusion), and then trained on 8072 radiographs annotated for ARDS by multiple physicians using various transfer learning approaches. The best performing CNN was tested on chest radiographs in an internal and external cohort, including a subset reviewed by six physicians, including a chest radiologist and physicians trained in intensive care medicine. Chest radiograph data were acquired from four US hospitals. FINDINGS: In an internal test set of 1560 chest radiographs from 455 patients with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure, a CNN could detect ARDS with an area under the receiver operator characteristics curve (AUROC) of 0·92 (95% CI 0·89-0·94). In the subgroup of 413 images reviewed by at least six physicians, its AUROC was 0·93 (95% CI 0·88-0·96), sensitivity 83·0% (95% CI 74·0-91·1), and specificity 88·3% (95% CI 83·1-92·8). Among images with zero of six ARDS annotations (n=155), the median CNN probability was 11%, with six (4%) assigned a probability above 50%. Among images with six of six ARDS annotations (n=27), the median CNN probability was 91%, with two (7%) assigned a probability below 50%. In an external cohort of 958 chest radiographs from 431 patients with sepsis, the AUROC was 0·88 (95% CI 0·85-0·91). When radiographs annotated as equivocal were excluded, the AUROC was 0·93 (0·92-0·95). INTERPRETATION: A CNN can be trained to achieve expert physician-level performance in ARDS detection on chest radiographs. Further research is needed to evaluate the use of these algorithms to support real-time identification of ARDS patients to ensure fidelity with evidence-based care or to support ongoing ARDS research. FUNDING: National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and Department of Veterans Affairs.

Comparing Clinical Features and Outcomes in Mechanically Ventilated Patients with COVID-19 and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

Rationale: Patients with severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) meet clinical criteria for the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), yet early reports suggested they differ physiologically and clinically from patients with non-COVID-19 ARDS, prompting treatment recommendations that deviate from standard evidence-based practices for ARDS. Objectives: To compare respiratory physiology, clinical outcomes, and extrapulmonary clinical features of severe COVID-19 with non-COVID-19 ARDS. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study, comparing 130 consecutive mechanically ventilated patients with severe COVID-19 with 382 consecutive mechanically ventilated patients with non-COVID-19 ARDS. Initial respiratory physiology and 28-day outcomes were compared. Extrapulmonary manifestations (inflammation, extrapulmonary organ injury, and coagulation) were compared in an exploratory analysis. Results: Comparison of patients with COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ARDS suggested small differences in respiratory compliance, ventilatory efficiency, and oxygenation. The 28-day mortality was 30% in patients with COVID-19 and 38% in patients with non-COVID-19 ARDS. In adjusted analysis, point estimates of differences in time to breathing unassisted at 28 days (adjusted subdistributional hazards ratio, 0.98 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.77-1.26]) and 28-day mortality (risk ratio, 1.01 [95% CI, 0.72-1.42]) were small for COVID-19 versus non-COVID-19 ARDS, although the confidence intervals for these estimates include moderate differences. Patients with COVID-19 had lower neutrophil counts but did not differ in lymphocyte count or other measures of systemic inflammation. Conclusions: In this single-center cohort, we found no evidence for large differences between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ARDS. Many key clinical features of severe COVID-19 were similar to those of non-COVID-19 ARDS, including respiratory physiology and clinical outcomes, although our sample size precludes definitive conclusions. Further studies are needed to define COVID-19-specific pathophysiology before a deviation from evidence-based treatment practices can be recommended.

Bronchopleural Fistula in the Mechanically Ventilated Patient: A Concise Review.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the physiology of air leak in bronchopleural fistula in mechanically ventilated patients and how understanding of its physiology drives management of positive-pressure ventilation. To provide guidance of lung isolation, mechanical ventilator, pleural catheter, and endobronchial strategies for the management of bronchopleural fistula on mechanical ventilation. DATA SOURCES: Online search of PubMed and manual review of articles (laboratory and patient studies) was performed. STUDY SELECTION: Articles relevant to bronchopleural fistula, mechanical ventilation in patients with bronchopleural fistula, independent lung ventilation, high-flow ventilatory modes, physiology of persistent air leak, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, fluid dynamics of bronchopleural fistula airflow, and intrapleural catheter management were selected. Randomized trials, observational studies, case reports, and physiologic studies were included. DATA EXTRACTION: Data from selected studies were qualitatively evaluated for this review. We included data illustrating the physiology of driving pressure across a bronchopleural fistula as well as data, largely from case reports, demonstrating management and outcomes with various ventilator modes, intrapleural catheter techniques, endoscopic placement of occlusion and valve devices, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Themes related to managing persistent air leak with mechanical ventilation were reviewed and extracted. DATA SYNTHESIS: In case reports that demonstrate different approaches to managing patients with bronchopleural fistula requiring mechanical ventilation, common themes emerge. Strategies aimed at decreasing peak inspiratory pressure, using lower tidal volumes, lowering positive end-expiratory pressure, decreasing the inspiratory time, and decreasing the respiratory rate, while minimizing negative intrapleural pressure decreases airflow across the bronchopleural fistula. CONCLUSIONS: Mechanical ventilation and intrapleural catheter management must be individualized and aimed at reducing air leak. Clinicians should emphasize reducing peak inspiratory pressures, reducing positive end-expiratory pressure, and limiting negative intrapleural pressure. In refractory cases, clinicians can consider lung isolation, independent lung ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in appropriate patients as well as definitive management with advanced bronchoscopic placement of valves or occlusion devices.

Validating Measures of Disease Severity in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

Rationale: Quantifying acute respiratory disease syndrome (ARDS) severity is essential for prognostic enrichment to stratify patients for invasive or higher-risk treatments; however, the comparative performance of many ARDS severity measures is unknown.Objectives: To validate ARDS severity measures for their ability to predict hospital mortality and an ARDS-specific outcome (defined as death from pulmonary dysfunction or the need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation [ECMO] therapy).Methods: We compared five individual ARDS severity measures including the ratio of arterial oxygen tension/pressure to fraction of inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2 ratio), oxygenation index, ventilatory ratio, lung compliance, and radiologic assessment of lung edema (RALE); two ARDS composite severity scores including the Murray Lung Injury Score, and a novel score combining RALE, PaO2/FiO2 ratio, and ventilatory ratio; and the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation IV score, using data collected at ARDS onset in patients hospitalized at a single center in 2016 and 2017. Discrimination of hospital mortality and the ARDS-specific outcome was evaluated using the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC). Measure calibration was also evaluated.Results: Among 340 patients with ARDS, 125 (37%) died during hospitalization and 36 (10.6%) had the ARDS-specific outcome, including one who received ECMO. Among the five individual ARDS severity measures, the RALE score had the highest discrimination of the ARDS-specific outcome (AUROC = 0.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.58-0.77), although other ARDS severity measures had similar performance. However, their ability to discriminate overall mortality was low. In contrast, the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation IV score best discriminated overall mortality (AUROC = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.67-0.79) but was unable to discriminate the ARDS-specific outcome (AUROC = 0.54; 95% CI, 0.44-0.65). Among ARDS composite severity scores, the lung injury score had an AUROC = 0.67 (95% CI, 0.58-0.75) for the ARDS-specific outcome whereas the novel score had an AUROC = 0.70 (95% CI, 0.61-0.79). Patients grouped by quartile of the novel score had a 6%, 2%, 10%, and 24% rate of the ARDS-specific outcome.Conclusions: Although most ARDS severity measures had poor discrimination of hospital mortality, they performed better at predicting death from severe pulmonary dysfunction or ECMO needs. A novel composite score had the highest discrimination of this outcome.

Cardiogenic Auto-Triggering as a Consequence of Hemoperitoneum.

A 70-year-old woman presented with hemorrhagic shock secondary to hemoperitoneum following a paracentesis. On hospital day 3, she developed respiratory alkalosis and increased respiratory rates observed on the ventilator despite no spontaneous inspiratory effort. Converting to pressure support mode uncovered a cardiogenic oscillatory flow that had been auto-triggering the ventilator. This cardiogenic auto-triggering resolved with large-volume paracentesis. Cardiogenic auto-triggering leads to patient-ventilator dyssynchrony, respiratory alkalosis, lung distension, and difficulty with weaning from the ventilator, and it may be unrecognized in ICUs.

Causes and characteristics of death in patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome: a retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are associated with high in-hospital mortality. However, in cohorts of ARDS patients from the 1990s, patients more commonly died from sepsis or multi-organ failure rather than refractory hypoxemia. Given increased attention to lung-protective ventilation and sepsis treatment in the past 25 years, we hypothesized that causes of death may be different among contemporary cohorts. These differences may provide clinicians with insight into targets for future therapeutic interventions. METHODS: We identified adult patients hospitalized at a single tertiary care center (2016-2017) with AHRF, defined as PaO2/FiO2 ≤ 300 while receiving invasive mechanical ventilation for > 12 h, who died during hospitalization. ARDS was adjudicated by multiple physicians using the Berlin definition. Separate abstractors blinded to ARDS status collected data on organ dysfunction and withdrawal of life support using a standardized tool. The primary cause of death was defined as the organ system that most directly contributed to death or withdrawal of life support. RESULTS: We identified 385 decedents with AHRF, of whom 127 (33%) had ARDS. The most common primary causes of death were sepsis (26%), pulmonary dysfunction (22%), and neurologic dysfunction (19%). Multi-organ failure was present in 70% at time of death, most commonly due to sepsis (50% of all patients), and 70% were on significant respiratory support at the time of death. Only 2% of patients had insupportable oxygenation or ventilation. Eighty-five percent died following withdrawal of life support. Patients with ARDS more often had pulmonary dysfunction as the primary cause of death (28% vs 19%; p = 0.04) and were also more likely to die while requiring significant respiratory support (82% vs 64%; p <  0.01). CONCLUSIONS: In this contemporary cohort of patients with AHRF, the most common primary causes of death were sepsis and pulmonary dysfunction, but few patients had insupportable oxygenation or ventilation. The vast majority of deaths occurred after withdrawal of life support. ARDS patients were more likely to have pulmonary dysfunction as the primary cause of death and die while requiring significant respiratory support compared to patients without ARDS.

Emergency Department Management of Acute Kidney Injury, Electrolyte Abnormalities, and Renal Replacement Therapy in the Critically Ill.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common sequela of critical illness. Clinical manifestation of AKI varies and can include electrolyte abnormalities, anion gap, or non-anion-gap metabolic acidosis. Treatment strategies require careful identification of the cause of the AKI, relying on both clinical history and laboratory data. Once the cause has been identified, treatment can then target the underlying cause and avoid further insults. Conservative management should first be attempted for patients with AKI. If conservative management fails, renal replacement therapy or hemodialysis can be used.

Differences between Patients in Whom Physicians Agree and Disagree about the Diagnosis of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

RATIONALE: Because the Berlin definition of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has only moderate reliability, physicians disagree about the diagnosis of ARDS in some patients. Understanding the clinical differences between patients with agreement and disagreement about the diagnosis of ARDS may provide insight into the epidemiology and pathophysiology of this syndrome, and inform strategies to improve the reliability of ARDS diagnosis. OBJECTIVES: To characterize patients with diagnostic disagreement about ARDS among critical-care-trained physicians and compare them with patients with a consensus that ARDS developed. METHODS: Patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (arterial oxygen tension/pressure [PaO2]/fraction of inspired oxygen [FiO2] < 300 during invasive mechanical ventilation) were independently reviewed for ARDS by multiple critical-care physicians and categorized as consensus-ARDS, disagreement about the diagnosis, or no ARDS. RESULTS: Among 738 patients reviewed, 110 (15%) had consensus-ARDS, 100 (14%) had disagreement, and 528 (72%) did not have ARDS. ARDS diagnosis rates ranged from 9% to 47% across clinicians. Patients with disagreement had baseline comorbidity rates similar to those of patients with consensus-ARDS, but lower rates of ARDS risk factors and less severe measures of lung injury. Mean days of severe hypoxemia (PaO2/FiO2 < 100) were 3.2 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-3.9), 2.0 (95% CI, 1.5-2.4), and 0.8 (95% CI, 0.7-0.9) among patients with consensus-ARDS, disagreement, and no ARDS, respectively. Hospital mortality was 37% (95% CI, 28-46%), 35% (95% CI, 26-44%), and 19% (95% CI, 15-22%) across groups. Simple combinations of specific ARDS risk factors and lowest PaO2/FiO2 value could effectively discriminate patients (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.90; 95% CI, 0.88-0.92). For example, 63% of patients with pneumonia, shock, and PaO2/FiO2 < 110 had consensus-ARDS, whereas 100% of patients without pneumonia or shock and PaO2/FiO2 > 180 did not have ARDS. CONCLUSIONS: Disagreement about the diagnosis of ARDS is common and can be partly explained by the difficulty of dichotomizing patients along a continuous spectrum of ARDS manifestations. Considering both the presence of key ARDS risk factors and hypoxemia severity can help guide clinicians in identifying patients with diagnosis of ARDS agreed upon by a consensus of physicians.

EAST Multicenter Trial on targeted temperature management for hanging-induced cardiac arrest.

BACKGROUND: We sought to determine the outcome of suicidal hanging and the impact of targeted temperature management (TTM) on hanging-induced cardiac arrest (CA) through an Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) multicenter retrospective study. METHODS: We analyzed hanging patient data and TTM variables from January 1992 to December 2015. Cerebral performance category score of 1 or 2 was considered good neurologic outcome, while cerebral performance category score of 3 or 4 was considered poor outcome. Classification and Regression Trees recursive partitioning was used to develop multivariate predictive models for survival and neurologic outcome. RESULTS: A total of 692 hanging patients from 17 centers were analyzed for this study. Their overall survival rate was 77%, and the CA survival rate was 28.6%. The CA patients had significantly higher severity of illness and worse outcome than the non-CA patients. Of the 175 CA patients who survived to hospital admission, 81 patients (46.3%) received post-CA TTM. The unadjusted survival of TTM CA patients (24.7% vs 39.4%, p < 0.05) and good neurologic outcome (19.8% vs 37.2%, p < 0.05) were worse than non-TTM CA patients. However, when subgroup analyses were performed between those with an admission Glasgow Coma Scale score of 3 to 8, the differences between TTM and non-TTM CA survival (23.8% vs 30.0%, p = 0.37) and good neurologic outcome (18.8% vs 28.7%, p = 0.14) were not significant. Targeted temperature management implementation and post-CA management varied between the participating centers. Classification and Regression Trees models identified variables predictive of favorable and poor outcome for hanging and TTM patients with excellent accuracy. CONCLUSION: Cardiac arrest hanging patients had worse outcome than non-CA patients. Targeted temperature management CA patients had worse unadjusted survival and neurologic outcome than non-TTM patients. These findings may be explained by their higher severity of illness, variable TTM implementation, and differences in post-CA management. Future prospective studies are necessary to ascertain the effect of TTM on hanging outcome and to validate our Classification and Regression Trees models. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic study, level IV; prognostic study, level III.

Interobserver Reliability of the Berlin ARDS Definition and Strategies to Improve the Reliability of ARDS Diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Failure to reliably diagnose ARDS may be a major driver of negative clinical trials and underrecognition and treatment in clinical practice. We sought to examine the interobserver reliability of the Berlin ARDS definition and examine strategies for improving the reliability of ARDS diagnosis. METHODS: Two hundred five patients with hypoxic respiratory failure from four ICUs were reviewed independently by three clinicians, who evaluated whether patients had ARDS, the diagnostic confidence of the reviewers, whether patients met individual ARDS criteria, and the time when criteria were met. RESULTS: Interobserver reliability of an ARDS diagnosis was "moderate" (kappa = 0.50; 95% CI, 0.40-0.59). Sixty-seven percent of diagnostic disagreements between clinicians reviewing the same patient was explained by differences in how chest imaging studies were interpreted, with other ARDS criteria contributing less (identification of ARDS risk factor, 15%; cardiac edema/volume overload exclusion, 7%). Combining the independent reviews of three clinicians can increase reliability to "substantial" (kappa = 0.75; 95% CI, 0.68-0.80). When a clinician diagnosed ARDS with "high confidence," all other clinicians agreed with the diagnosis in 72% of reviews. There was close agreement between clinicians about the time when a patient met all ARDS criteria if ARDS developed within the first 48 hours of hospitalization (median difference, 5 hours). CONCLUSIONS: The reliability of the Berlin ARDS definition is moderate, driven primarily by differences in chest imaging interpretation. Combining independent reviews by multiple clinicians or improving methods to identify bilateral infiltrates on chest imaging are important strategies for improving the reliability of ARDS diagnosis.

New Electrocardiographic Changes in Patients Diagnosed with Pulmonary Embolism.

BACKGROUND: The electronic medical record is a relatively new technology that allows quick review of patients' previous medical records, including previous electrocardiograms (ECGs). Previous studies have evaluated ECG patterns predictive of pulmonary embolism (PE) at the time of PE diagnosis, though none have examined ECG changes in these patients when compared with their previous ECGs. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to identify the most common ECG changes in patients with known PE when their ECGs were compared with their previous ECGs. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of patients diagnosed with PE in the emergency department was performed. Each patient's presenting ECG was compared with their most recent ECG obtained before diagnosis of PE. RESULTS: A total of 352 cases were reviewed. New T wave inversions, commonly in the inferior leads, were the most common change found, occurring in 34.4% of cases. New T wave flattening, also most commonly in the inferior leads, was the second most common change, occurring in 29.5%. A new sinus tachycardia occurred in 27.3% of cases. In 24.1% of patients, no new ECG changes were noted, with this finding more likely to occur in patients younger than 60 years. CONCLUSIONS: The most common ECG changes when compared with previous ECG in the setting of PE are T wave inversion and flattening, most commonly in the inferior leads, and occurring in approximately one-third of cases. Approximately one-quarter of patients will have a new sinus tachycardia, and approximately one-quarter will have no change in their ECG.

Accuracy of Daily Lung Ultrasound for the Detection of Pulmonary Edema Following Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND: Early detection of pulmonary edema is vital to appropriate fluid management following subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Lung ultrasound (LUS) has been shown to accurately identify pulmonary edema in patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF). Our objective was to determine the accuracy of daily screening LUS for the detection of pulmonary edema following SAH. METHODS: Screening LUS was performed in conjunction with daily transcranial doppler for SAH patients within the delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) risk period in our neuroICU. We reviewed records of SAH patients admitted 7/2012-5/2014 who underwent bilateral LUS on at least 5 consecutive days. Ultrasound videos were reviewed by an investigator blinded to the final diagnosis. "B+ lines" were defined as ≥3 B-lines on LUS. Two other investigators blinded to ultrasound results determined whether pulmonary edema with ARF (PE-ARF) was present during the period of evaluation on the basis of independent chart review, with a fourth investigator performing adjudication in the event of disagreement. The diagnostic accuracy of B+ lines for the detection of PE-ARF and RPE was determined. RESULTS: Of 59 patients meeting criteria for inclusion, 21 (36%) had PE-ARF and 26 (44%) had B+ lines. Kappa for inter-rater agreement was 0.821 (p < 0.0001) for clinical diagnosis of PE-ARF between the two investigators. B+ lines demonstrated sensitivity 90% (95% CI 70-99%) and specificity 82% (66-92%), for PE-ARF. Median days from B+ lines onset to PE-ARF was 1 (IQR 0-1). CONCLUSION: Screening LUS was a sensitive test for the detection of symptomatic pulmonary edema following SAH and may assist with fluid titration during the risk period for DCI.