Optimal Duration of Antibiotics Following Appendectomy for Patients With Complicated Appendicitis.

BACKGROUND: Complicated appendicitis patients typically undergo appendectomy followed by antibiotics. The optimal course of antibiotics for complicated appendicitis is poorly defined. METHODS: Data were collected from patients presenting with acute appendicitis and underwent appendectomy at the index hospitalization (2015-2017). Primary outcomes were readmission rate, superficial surgical site infection (SSI), deep space infection (DSI), which includes abscess. Length of post-operative antibiotic use was recorded and an average intent-to-treat (ITT) by operative grade was calculated. RESULTS: Two hundred seventy-two patients (23%) were diagnosed with complicated appendicitis. SSI occurred in 4% of patients (n = 11); SSI rates ranged from 0% to 14.6% by ITT group with 3-4 days being the lowest (0%) and <3 days the highest (14.6%) (P = .008). DSI including abscesses occurred in 27 (9.9%) patients; least frequently in the 5-6 day ITT group (7.4%). Length of stay (LOS) was significantly related to longer antibiotic use (P < .001) and increasing operative grade (P < .01). CONCLUSIONS: Given the lower incidence of postoperative complications between 3 and 6 days and no added benefit for ITT >6 days, we recommend limiting antibiotic treatment to 3-6 days for all complicated appendicitis cases with additional workup warranted if infectious symptoms persist.

History and significance of the trauma resuscitation flow sheet.

There is little to no written information in the literature regarding the origin of the trauma flow sheet. This vital document allows programs to evaluate initial processes of trauma care. This information populates the trauma registry and is reviewed in nearly every Trauma Process Improvement and Patient Safety conference when discerning the course of patient care. It is so vital, a scribe is assigned to complete this documentation task for all trauma resuscitations, and there are continual process improvement efforts in trauma centers across the nation to ensure complete and accurate data collection. Indeed, it is the single most important document reviewed by the verification committee when evaluating processes of care at site visits. Trauma surgeons often overlook its importance during resuscitation, as recording remains the domain of the trauma scribe. Yet it is the first document scrutinized when the outcome is less than what is expected. The development of the flow sheet is not a result of any consensus statement, expert work group, or mandate, but a result of organic evolution due to the need for relevant and better data. The purpose of this review is to outline the origin, importance, and critical utility of the trauma flow sheet.

Platelet transfusion does not improve outcomes in patients with brain injury on antiplatelet therapy.

INTRODUCTION: Platelet dysfunction following traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with worse outcomes. The efficacy of platelet transfusion to reverse antiplatelet medication (APM) remains unknown. Thrombelastography platelet mapping (TEG-PM) assesses platelet function. We hypothesize that platelet transfusion can reverse the effects of APM but does not improve outcomes following TBI. METHODS: An observational study at six US trauma centres was performed. Adult patients on APM with CT evident TBI after blunt injury were enrolled. Demographics, brain CT and TEG-PM results before/after platelet transfusion, length of stay (LOS), and injury severity score (ISS) were abstracted. RESULTS: Sixty six patients were enrolled (89% aspirin, 50% clopidogrel, 23% dual APM) with 23 patients undergoing platelet transfusion. Transfused patients had significantly higher ISS and admission CT scores. Platelet transfusion significantly reduced platelet inhibition due to aspirin (76.0 ± 30.2% to 52.7 ± 31.5%, p < 0.01), but had a non-significant impact on clopidogrel-associated inhibition (p = 0.07). Platelet transfusion was associated with longer length of stay (7.8 vs. 3.5 days, p < 0.01), but there were no differences in mortality. CONCLUSION: Platelet transfusion significantly decreases platelet inhibition due to aspirin but is not associated with change in outcomes in patients on APM following TBI.

Expanding the scope of quality measurement in surgery to include nonoperative care: Results from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program emergency general surgery pilot.

BACKGROUND: Patients managed nonoperatively have been excluded from risk-adjusted benchmarking programs, including the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP). Consequently, optimal performance evaluation is not possible for specialties like emergency general surgery (EGS) where nonoperative management is common. We developed a multi-institutional EGS clinical data registry within ACS NSQIP that includes patients managed nonoperatively to evaluate variability in nonoperative care across hospitals and identify gaps in performance assessment that occur when only operative cases are considered. METHODS: Using ACS NSQIP infrastructure and methodology, surgical consultations for acute appendicitis, acute cholecystitis, and small bowel obstruction (SBO) were sampled at 13 hospitals that volunteered to participate in the EGS clinical data registry. Standard NSQIP variables and 16 EGS-specific variables were abstracted with 30-day follow-up. To determine the influence of complications in nonoperative patients, rates of adverse outcomes were identified, and hospitals were ranked by performance with and then without including nonoperative cases. RESULTS: Two thousand ninety-one patients with EGS diagnoses were included, 46.6% with appendicitis, 24.3% with cholecystitis, and 29.1% with SBO. The overall rate of nonoperative management was 27.4%, 6.6% for appendicitis, 16.5% for cholecystitis, and 69.9% for SBO. Despite comprising only 27.4% of patients in the EGS pilot, nonoperative management accounted for 67.7% of deaths, 34.3% of serious morbidities, and 41.8% of hospital readmissions. After adjusting for patient characteristics and hospital diagnosis mix, addition of nonoperative management to hospital performance assessment resulted in 12 of 13 hospitals changing performance rank, with four hospitals changing by three or more positions. CONCLUSION: This study identifies a gap in performance evaluation when nonoperative patients are excluded from surgical quality assessment and demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating nonoperative care into existing surgical quality initiatives. Broadening the scope of hospital performance assessment to include nonoperative management creates an opportunity to improve the care of all surgical patients, not just those who have an operation. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Care management, level IV; Epidemiologic, level III.

School-Based Team Research to Address Grand Challenges Through P-12 Physical Education Programs.

One of the grand challenges of our time is to educate children and youth to live physically active and healthy lives today and into adulthood. To do so, we must first agree that the highest mission priority for physical education programs in schools is that of public health promotion through physical activity. Under that mission, school physical education programs from preschool to Grade 12 (P-12) would be designed, implemented, resourced, and evaluated to help children meet the recommended 60 min of daily physical activity. From there, the worth of those programs would be judged on their success in accomplishing that mission. This article outlines an agenda for conducting longitudinal, cross-disciplinary team research on exemplary physical education programs that have demonstrated the capacity to help more children achieve the recommended daily level for physical activity. Once those exemplars have been studied and documented, the final step in this agenda is for researchers to disseminate their findings beyond the traditional audiences who read scholarly journals. Those new audiences would include school leaders, parents, other physical activity professionals and organizations, and, ultimately, policymakers. The article ends with a description of a 2-year research project that achieved many of the goals aligned with comprehensive school physical activity programs and that would promote SHAPE America - The Society of Health and Physical Educators' 50 Million Strong by 2029 initiative.

Teacher effectiveness research in physical education: the future isn't what it used to be.

This commentary was written in response to the Rink (2013), McKenzie and Lounsbery (2013), and Ward (2013) articles published earlier on teacher effectiveness in physical education (PE). The historical analyses of teacher effectiveness research in PE (TER-PE) presented in those 3 articles are briefly described, particularly as they represent a collective agenda in the first 3 decades in this line of inquiry. That collective agenda was primarily driven by physical education researchers and P-12 teachers, who developed and explored empirically based best practices for effective teaching and learning in physical education, which informed much of the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge learned in physical education teacher education programs. Based on 2 recent policy developments in many states, external threats to the previous agenda for TER-PE are presented by the author, who concedes that the lead for the future agenda for TER-PE will soon be taken out of the hands of researchers, teachers, and teacher educators and transferred to educational agencies in the form of new policies on initial teacher certification and the evaluation of in-service teachers in a growing number of states.

Comparison of piperacillin/tazobactam and imipenem/cilastatin, both in combination with tobramycin, administered every 6 h for treatment of nosocomial pneumonia.

This randomized, double-blind, multicenter study compared the efficacy and safety of piperacillin/tazobactam (P/T) and imipenem/cilastatin (IMP), both in combination with an aminoglycoside, in hospitalized patients with acute nosocomial pneumonia (NP). Patients with acute NP, defined as pneumonia with symptoms > or = 48 h after admission or < or =7 days after hospital discharge, received infusions of 4 g/500 mg P/T or 500 mg/500 mg IMP every 6 h. Endpoints were clinical cure and microbiological response rates; pathogen eradication rates; length of hospital stay; hospital readmissions; and adverse events (AEs). Of 437 patients in the intent-to-treat population, 197 were efficacy evaluable. At test-of-cure, response rates were similar between groups. Within the efficacy evaluable population, 68% of P/T patients and 61% of IMP patients were clinically cured (P = 0.256). Microbiological responses for P/T and IMP patients were: eradication, 64% versus 59%; persistence, 29% versus 21%; relapse, 0% versus 5%; and superinfection, 7% versus 15%, respectively. Gram-positive isolates were eradicated in 83% of P/T patients and 75% of IMP patients; Gram-negative pathogens were eradicated in 72% of P/T patients and 77% of IMP patients. Treatment groups had similar number of mean hospital days, readmission rates, and frequency of AEs. This study showed that P/T administered four times per day was as safe and efficacious as IMP in treating hospitalized patients with NP.

Comparison of antimicrobial impregnation with tunneling of long-term central venous catheters: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to compare the impact of antimicrobial impregnation to that of tunneling of long-term central venous catheters on the rates of catheter colonization and catheter-related bloodstream infection. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: Tunneling of catheters constitutes a standard of care for preventing infections associated with long-term vascular access. Although antimicrobial coating of short-term central venous catheters has been demonstrated to protect against catheter-related bloodstream infection, the applicability of this preventive approach to long-term vascular access has not been established. METHODS: A prospective, randomized clinical trial in 7 university-affiliated hospitals of adult patients who required a vascular access for > or = 2 weeks. Patients were randomized to receive a silicone central venous catheter that was either impregnated with minocycline and rifampin or tunneled. The occurrence of catheter colonization and catheter-related bloodstream infection was determined. RESULTS: Of a total of 351 inserted catheters, 346 (186 antimicrobial-impregnated and 160 tunneled) were analyzed for catheter-related bloodstream infection. Clinical characteristics were comparable in the 2 study groups, but the antimicrobial-impregnated catheters remained in place for a shorter period of time (mean, 30.2 versus 43.8 days). Antimicrobial-impregnated catheters were as likely to be colonized as tunneled catheters (7.9 versus 6.3 per 1000 catheter-days). Bloodstream infection was 4 times less likely to originate from antimicrobial-impregnated than from tunneled catheters (0.36 versus 1.43 per 1000 catheter-days). CONCLUSIONS: Antimicrobial impregnation of long-term central venous catheters may help obviate the need for tunneling of catheters.

Quantitative tracheal lavage versus bronchoscopic protected specimen brush for the diagnosis of nosocomial pneumonia in mechanically ventilated patients.

BACKGROUND: No gold standard method exists for the diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia despite the availability of multiple techniques. METHODS: A prospective, crossover study was performed on mechanically ventilated patients meeting with suspected pneumonia. Eighteen paired samples were obtained on 15 patients, comparing the results of quantitative tracheal lavage (QTL) to bronchoscopic protected brush specimen (PSB) by quantitative culture and gram stain examination. RESULTS: The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and accuracy are affected by the growth density threshold selected, and whether the same organisms are expected by both methods. There is a significant relationship between QTL and PSB (P = 0.0048; R = 0.632), gram stain and PSB (P <0.001; R = 0.791), and gram stain and QTL (P = 0.0125; R = 0.575), by Spearman rank order correlation. CONCLUSIONS: QTL may have a role for diagnosing and directing treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia, allowing reservation of bronchoscopic PSB for secondary, high risk and refractory cases.

Recombinant platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase to prevent acute respiratory distress syndrome and mortality in severe sepsis: Phase IIb, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: Platelet-activating factor (PAF) is a potent proinflammatory mediator implicated in the pathogenesis of both severe sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome. One of the regulatory pathways for PAF involves degradation to the inactive metabolite lyso-PAF by the enzyme PAF acetylhydrolase (PAF-AH). Because reduced concentrations of the natural form of PAF-AH have been reported in septic patients, the present study was conducted to determine whether treatment with recombinant human PAF-AH (rPAF-AH, Pafase) was safe when administered after the onset of severe sepsis and whether it decreases the prevalence of acute respiratory distress syndrome and 28-day all-cause mortality. DESIGN: A prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial. SETTING: Thirty-three medical and surgical intensive care units located in the United States. PATIENTS: A total of 127 patients with severe sepsis, but without established acute respiratory distress syndrome, were enrolled in the study. Randomization occurred within 12 hrs of the onset of severe sepsis. Patients then received 1.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH (n = 45), 5.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH (n = 39), or placebo (n = 43) administered intravenously, once daily, for five consecutive days. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Demographic and baseline clinical characteristics of the three treatment groups were similar, except for a significantly higher prevalence of respiratory tract infections as the cause of severe sepsis in patients treated with 1.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH. There were no treatment-related deaths, and the overall prevalence of adverse events was similar among rPAF-AH-treated and placebo-treated patients. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of acute respiratory distress syndrome among the three treatment groups. However, 28-day all-cause mortality was 21% in the 1.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH group, 28% in the 5.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH group, and 44% in the placebo group (overall chi-square p =.07; 1.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH vs. placebo, p =.03). A trend toward reduced multiple organ dysfunction also was observed in the 1.0 mg/kg rPAF-AH group compared with the placebo group (p =.11). CONCLUSION: The results from this study indicate that rPAF-AH was well tolerated and should be pursued as a potential new treatment to decrease mortality in patients with severe sepsis.

The use of forced flexion/extension views in the obtunded trauma patient.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether forced flexion/extension (F/E) films for "clearing" the cervical spine in unconscious or semiconscious patients are useful or actually dangerous. DESIGN AND PATIENTS: Of 810 patients admitted for blunt trauma over a 5-year period, 479 patients whose films and charts were available received passive F/E film views of the cervical spine. Of these, 447 were reviewed retrospectively in masked fashion for any exacerbation of neurological changes subsequent to the procedure and with respect to the final neurological status at discharge. RESULTS: Twenty-nine patients (6%) had various abnormalities including fractures and ligamentous injuries seen on the initial films. Following forced F/E films no change was made in the diagnosis of 23 patients. Of the remaining six patients, two required no treatment, two only required the use of a collar but two did have surgical intervention, this decision being based on the findings seen in the initial films. However, 285 films (59%) were judged inadequate due either to inadequate F/E (150 patients, 31%) or poor visualization (194 patients, 40%). There were three false positives all subsequently cleared by other studies and there were no false negatives. From the chart review, there were no complications or deaths attributable to the procedure. CONCLUSION: Although we were unable to find any complication or deaths directly attributable to the procedure, the clinicians abandoned passive F/E views in obtunded patients on the grounds of expense. Our present method of "clearing" a cervical spine in an obtunded patient is a cross-table lateral radiograph followed by a high-resolution thin-slice CT scan with sagittal and coronal reconstruction. We are against the use of routine MRI studies and of a forced F/E view in these patients.

Critical care issues in stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage.

The outcomes of devastating neurological emergencies such as stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage may be measurably improved by timely treatment in a neurointensive care unit (NICU). Optimal care requires a multidisciplinary approach, with attention to a wide range of treatment issues. This review examines the key therapeutic concerns in the NICU management of acute ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage, including mechanical ventilation, blood pressure management, cardiac monitoring, intracranial pressure assessment, vasospasm, seizures, sedation, fluids, electrolytes, and nutrition. The discussion of mechanical ventilation includes rapid sequence induction and intubation, indication for intubation and extubation, and prognostic factors in mechanical ventilation. Differing blood pressure management concerns in hemorrhagic and ischemic events are discussed, and specific target blood pressures and pharmacologic interventions are reviewed. The discussion of cardiac monitoring includes concurrent stroke and cardiac ischemia and arrhythmias, cardiac imaging, anticoagulation, and vasopressor therapy. The importance, monitoring and management of cerebral blood flow and intracranial pressure (ICP) are discussed, and strategies for treatment of elevated ICP are outlined in detail. The discussion of vasospasm includes evaluation, prophylaxis, and treatment with medications, hypervolemic hemodilution, and angioplasty. Management of seizure and status epilepticus in stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage are reviewed and current algorithms are presented. The management of fluids, electrolytes and enteral nutrition are also reviewed.

Flexion and extension views are not cost-effective in a cervical spine clearance protocol for obtunded trauma patients.

BACKGROUND: Between 1994 and 1999, 837 flexion-extension cervical spine films (F/E) were ordered as part of a protocol to evaluate cervical stability in blunt trauma victims, particularly obtunded patients with otherwise normal films. After 5 years' experience with this protocol, a review of its efficiency and cost-effectiveness was performed. METHOD: The radiology reports and charts were reviewed for positive or suggestive F/E series. RESULTS: Nearly a third of all series were inadequate to rule out instability. Only four patients were identified who had decreased admission Glasgow Coma Scale score, normal plain films and/or CT, and positive or suggestive findings on F/E. One was felt to be a false positive, and the others had minor or borderline findings; all were treated with continuation of the cervical collar. Although one patient was lost to follow-up, none of the other three required subsequent surgery or developed deformity or neurologic injury. CONCLUSION: Flexion-extension studies were not a cost-effective part of the protocol, and they were dropped.