Increasing illness severity is associated with global myocardial dysfunction in the first 24 hours of sepsis admission.

BACKGROUND: Septic cardiomyopathy was recognized more than 30 years ago, but the early phase remains uncharacterized as no existing studies captured patients at the time of Emergency Department (ED) presentation, prior to resuscitation. Therapeutic interventions alter cardiac function, thereby distorting the relationship with disease severity and outcomes. The goal of this study was to assess the impact of illness severity on cardiac function during the first 24 h of sepsis admission. METHODS: This was a pre-planned secondary analysis of a prospective observational study of adults presenting to the ED with suspected sepsis (treatment for infection plus either lactate > 2 mmol/liter or systolic blood pressure < 90 mm/Hg) who received < 1L IV fluid before enrollment. Patients had 3 echocardiograms performed (presentation, 3, and 24 h). The primary outcome was the effect of increasing sepsis illness severity, defined by ED Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, on parameters of cardiac function, assessed using linear mixed-effects models. The secondary goal was to determine whether cardiac function differed between survivors and non-survivors, also using mixed-effects models. RESULTS: We enrolled 73 patients with a mean age of 60 (SD 16.1) years and in-hospital mortality of 23%. For the primary analysis, we found that increasing ED SOFA score was associated with worse cardiac function over the first 24 h across all assessed parameters of left-ventricular systolic and diastolic function as well as right-ventricular systolic function. While baseline strain and E/e' were better in survivors, in the mixed models analysis, the trajectory of Global Longitudinal Strain and septal E/e' over the first 24 h of illness differed between survivors and non-survivors, with improved function at 24 h in non-survivors. CONCLUSIONS: In the first study to capture patients prior to the initiation of resuscitation, we found a direct relationship between sepsis severity and global myocardial dysfunction. Future studies are needed to confirm these results, to identify myocardial depressants, and to investigate the link with adverse outcomes so that therapeutic interventions can be developed.

The Use of Handheld Ultrasound Devices in Emergency Medicine.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Ultraportable handheld ultrasound (HHU) devices are being rapidly adopted by emergency medicine (EM) physicians. Though knowledge of the breadth of their utility and functionality is still limited compared to cart-based systems, these machines are becoming more common due to ease-of-use, extreme affordability, and improving technology. RECENT FINDINGS: Images obtained with HHU are comparable to those obtained with traditional machines but create unique issues regarding billing and data management. HHU devices are increasingly used successfully to augment the education of practitioners-in-training, by emergency physicians in austere environments, and in the burgeoning fields of "tele-ultrasound" and augmented reality scanning. SUMMARY: This review seeks to describe the current state of use of HHU devices in the emergency department (ED) including device overview, institutional concerns, unique areas of use, recent literature since their adoption into clinical EM, and their future potential.

Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound for Detecting Severe Presentations of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Analyze the diagnostic test characteristics of point-of-care lung ultrasound for patients suspected to have novel coronavirus disease 2019. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort. SETTING: Two emergency departments in Detroit, Michigan, United States, during a local coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak (March 2020 to April 2020). PATIENTS: Emergency department patients receiving lung ultrasound for clinical suspicion of coronavirus disease 2019 during the study period. INTERVENTIONS: None, observational analysis only. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: By a reference standard of serial reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions, 42 patients were coronavirus disease 2019 positive, 16 negative, and eight untested (test results lost, died prior to testing, and/or did not meet hospital guidelines for rationing of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction tests). Thirty-three percent, 44%, 38%, and 17% had mortality, ICU admission, intubation, and venous or arterial thromboembolism, respectively. Receiver operating characteristics, area under the curve, sensitivity, and specificity with 95% CIs were calculated for five lung ultrasound patterns coded by a blinded reviewer and chest radiograph. Chest radiograph had area under the curve = 0.66 (95% CI, 0.54-0.79), 74% sensitivity (95% CI, 48-93%), and 53% specificity (95% CI, 32-75%). Two lung ultrasound patterns had a statistically significant area under the curve: symmetric bilateral pulmonary edema (area under the curve, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.50-0.64), and a nondependent bilateral pulmonary edema pattern (edema in superior lung ≥ inferior lung and no pleural effusion; area under the curve, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.68-0.90). Chest radiograph plus the nondependent bilateral pulmonary edema pattern showed a statistically improved area under the curve (0.80; 95% CI, 0.68-0.90) compared to either alone, but at the ideal cutoff had sensitivity and specificity equivalent to nondependent bilateral pulmonary edema only (69% and 77%, respectively). The strongest combination of clinical, chest radiograph, and lung ultrasound factors for diagnosis was nondependent bilateral pulmonary edema pattern with temperature and oxygen saturation (area under the curve, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76-0.94; sensitivity = 77% [58-93%]; specificity = 76% [53-94%] at the ideal cutoff), which was superior to chest radiograph alone. CONCLUSIONS: Lung ultrasound diagnosed severe presentations of coronavirus disease 2019 with similar sensitivity to chest radiograph, CT, and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (on first testing) and improved specificity compared to chest radiograph. Diagnostically useful lung ultrasound patterns differed from those hypothesized by previous, nonanalytical, reports (case series and expert opinion), and should be evaluated in a rigorous prospective study.