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The Radioactive Heart
For Journal Club this past week we covered what is undoubtably one of the more controversial diagnostic tests used in the evaluation of patients presenting to physicians with chest pain. The most recent NICE guidelines recommend Coronary CT as the first line test for patients with stable angina symptoms but don't Coronary CT's lead to increased downstream testing? more radiation exposure? To investigate this topic we took a look at 3 articles focused on the utility of Coronary CT scans. Take a listen to the podcast and read the recap to learn for yourself.
A Significant Clot
Last week our Journal Club focused on the treatment of hemodynamically significant pulmonary emboli. These are pulmonary emboli causing either frank hypotension (sometimes called massive or high risk PEs) or causing significant right heart strain as evidenced by CT findings, cardiac biomarker elevation, or bedside Echo findings. Drs. Grace Lagasse, Kari Gorder, and Claire O'Brien led us in a discussion of the 3 papers linked in the article. Read the papers yourself, listen to the podcast, read the summaries and get caught up on all things PE.
Don't Kill the Beans: The Specter of Contrast-Induced Nephropathy
Working in the Emergency Department, we often encounter patients with either pre-existing renal disease or an acute compromise of their renal function who also have a disease process necessitating a contrasted radiology study. So what do we do with that patient with a creatinine of 1.8 who has a possible vascular dissection/traumatic injury/infection? What is the risk of contrast to that patient? Should you compromise your diagnostic evaluation to avoid a harm to the patient's renal function? Dr. Nick Ludmer, Dr Michael Miller, and Dr. Amanda Polsinelli recap 3 articles recently published looking into contrast induced nephropathy. Take a listen to the podcast and read the blog post to get yourself acquainted with the current state of the literature.