September 2019

For acute musculoskeletal injuries, the combination of oral paracetamol (aka acetaminophen), ibuprofen, and codeine was not superior to paracetamol alone in regards to pain reduction at 60 minutes or need for rescue analgesia. The combo group had more adverse effects.

Vaping has been associated with severe acute lung injury in over 500 young people, and seven have died to date. Here is what you need to know.

There were significant differences in the differential diagnoses generated depending on the framing of a presentation.

Low dose dexamethasone 0.15 mg/kg and prednisolone 1 mg/kg had similar efficacy to the standard dexamethasone 0.6 mg/kg for treatment of croup. In addition, length of stay, use of nebulized epinephrine, recurrent presentations, and adverse events were similar for all steroids used for croup treatment.

The Mallampati score has not been shown to be adequately sensitive for determining difficult laryngoscopy, intubation, or bag-valve-mask ventilation in ED patients. Moreover, it is unreliable and frequently unfeasible in certain patient populations.

For short term relief of acute pain in the ED, 400 mg of oral ibuprofen offers a similar decrease in pain score compared to both 600 mg and 800 mg of ibuprofen.

Day sleepers slept 23% less compared to those sleeping during evening and nighttime hours .

Extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) may be a useful legal strategy to prevent mass shootings.

It appears that there is no difference in treatment failure or mortality when low-risk febrile neutropenia patients are treated at home vs inpatient. But be very cautious about this.

A new mobile app, the Weighing Cam, that visually scans children with the phone camera was more accurate than the Broselow tape in estimating the weight of pediatric patients.