scholarly journals A Retrospective Study of 51 Pediatric Cases of Traumatic Asphyxia

Author(s):  
luo huirong ◽  
xin jin

Abstract Backgroundtraumatic asphyxia (TA) is a rarely reported disease characterized as thoraco-cervico-facial petechiae, facial edema and cyanosis, subconjunctival hemorrhage and neurological symptoms. This study aimed to report 51 children of TA at the pediatric medical center of west China.Methodsscanned medical reports were reviewed and specific variables as age, sex, cause of injury, clinical manifestations and associated injuries were analyzed using SPSS 25.0.Resultsaged as 5.3±2.9 (1.3-13.2), 30 (58.8%) were boys and 21 (41.2%) were girls. Most TAs occurred during vehicle accident, object compression and stampede. All patients showed facial petechiae (100.0%, CI 93.0%-100.0%), 25 (49.0%, CI 34.8%-63.2%) out of 51 presented with facial edema, 29 (56.9%, CI 42.8%-70.9%) presented with subconjunctival hemorrhage, including bilateral 27 and unilateral 2. 6 patients had facial cyanosis (11.8%, CI 2.6%-20.9%). Other symptoms were also presented as epileptic seizure, vomiting, incontinence, paraplegia, etc. The most frequent companion injury was pulmonary contusion (76.5%, CI 64.4%-88.5%). Other companion injuries included mediastinal emphysema, fracture, cerebral contusion and hemorrhage, hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, abdominal organ contusion, mastoid hemorrhage, hematocele of paranasal sinuses, spinal injury, hepatic insufficiency, myocardial injury and retinal hemorrhage and edema. Treatment was mainly supportive. No death occurred in our study. The prognosis is rather good if without damage of central nervous system.ConclusionTA could bring out multiple symptoms, among which retinal hemorrhage and edema, spinal injury and viscera impairment have been less observed. Comprehensive physical and auxiliary examination should be performed considering TA. Its prognosis is rather good with focus on life-threatening complications.

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sedat Kamali ◽  
Sevgi Kesici ◽  
Ihsan Gunduz ◽  
Ugur Kesici

Background. Perthe's syndrome (traumatic asphyxia) is rare, which is caused by sudden compressive chest trauma and characterized by subconjunctival hemorrhage, facial edema, craniocervical cyanosis, and petechiae on the upper chest and face and should always be kept in mind as a possible complication of injuries of the chest and abdomen.Case Report. In this case report a 36-years-old male patient brought to the emergency room due to thorax trauma related to motorcycle accident was discussed. Distinct cyanotic, edematous, and multiple petechiae were present on the face, neck, and upper thorax regions of the patient. Bilateral subconjunctival hemorrhage was determined.Conclusion. Treatment for traumatic asphyxia is supportive and patient recovery is related to the generally associated injuries. Prognosis of the patients is quite good with effective and timely treatment.


2021 ◽  
pp. 112067212199404
Author(s):  
He Yu ◽  
Xinyu Ma ◽  
Nianting Tong ◽  
Zhanyu Zhou ◽  
Yu Zhang

Importance: This is the first reported case of acute exudative paraneoplastic polymorphous vitelliform maculopathy (AEPPVM) in a patient with thymoma, accompanied by myasthenia gravis (MG) and polymyositis. Objective: To examine the pathogenesis of ocular disease in a patient with yolk-like fundus lesions and thymoma, MG, and polymyositis throughout the body based on clinical manifestations, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and genetic testing to determine the appropriate treatment course. Design, setting, and participants: We describe a 63-year-old woman who presented to our tertiary medical center with a 3-month history of reduced visual acuity in both eyes. Concurrent fundoscopy revealed a 2.0 × 1.7-mm, unifocal, yellow, round vitelliform lesion in the macular region, surrounded by multifocal, shallow, yellow-white pockets of subretinal fluid. The patient’s medical history included thymoma with thymectomy treatment, combined with pericardiectomy and postoperative radiotherapy (20 years prior), followed by a diagnosis of MG with suspect thymic association (15 years prior). Three years prior, the patient had been diagnosed with polymyositis related to paraneoplastic syndrome; 1 year prior, she had been examined for pleural thickening due to suspected metastatic tumor. Results: On her most recent follow-up visit at 3 months after initial diagnosis, the patient was stable with no clinically significant progression in ocular or systemic conditions.


1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre M. Pennardt ◽  
Wm. John Zehner

AbstractIntroduction:Current paramedic training mandates complete immobilization of all patients, symptomatic or not, whose mechanism of injury typically is viewed as conducive to spinal trauma. It is common to observe confrontations between paramedics and walking, asymptomatic accident victims who fail to understand why they should “wear that collar and be strapped to that board.” Immobilized, frustrated patients then may wait for hours in a busy emergency department until a physician declares them to be without spinal injury. Patients frequently refuse treatment and transport.Hypothesis:Algorithms exist for physicians to “clear” the cervical spine (C-spine) without radiography. It was hypothesized that paramedics routinely assess and document these indicators in their patient evaluations.Methods:A retrospective chart review was conducted on 161 patients (Group 1) admitted to a regional medical center with a diagnosis of C-spine injury over a 52-month period. The charts of 225 motor vehicle accident (MVA) victims (Group 2) transported by ambulance to the emergency department over a five-month period then were studied. Indicators for C-spine injury documented by emergency medical service (EMS) personnel were abstracted.Results:All patients underwent mental status assessment and full spinal immobilization (neck and back) by EMS crews prior to transport to the hospital. Two or more indicators of possible C-spine injury were documented on each prehospital care report (PCR).Conclusion:Paramedics already assess most, if not all, of the criteria standard to C-spine clearance algorithms, but are inconsistent in their documentation of the presence or absence of all of the relevant findings.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bilisuma Mulatu ◽  
Yadene Michael ◽  
Seifu Alemu ◽  
Wondu Reta Demissie

Abstract Background: Thyroid cancer is the most common malignant disease of endocrine system and its incidence is rapidly increasing globally (about three to four times higher among females and accounts the sixth most common malignancy diagnosed in women). Among the four major types of thyroid cancer, papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) accounts 85-90% from all thyroid cases, followed by follicular thyroid cancer (FTC) which accounts for 5-10% of cases.Materials and Methods: A retrospective data of 260 patients who underwent thyroid surgery from 2015 to 2019 were included in the study and the status of the disease (clinical manifestations, laboratory/pathology findings (thyroid function tests (TFTs) and biopsy) were reviewed from patient cards. The pattern of thyroid cancer was discriminated based on histo-pathological biopsy result. Descriptive and analytical statistics were applied to express the finding and reported by tables, figures and narration. Cross tabulation and logistic regression was applied to determine the association between thyroid CA and predictors. A p-value of <0.05 was declared as statistically significant. Results: From the total sample of 260 patients underwent thyroid surgery, majority of them were females 219(84.2%), belong to age interval of 31-40 years (34.6%), dwellers of Oromia region (91.2%) and Jimma zone (83.8%). Colloid goiter was the most prevalent (74.6%) pattern of thyroid disease followed by follicular CA (4.2%), papillary CA (1.9%) and medullary CA (0.77%) while biopsy results of 48(18.46%) patients were not known. In general, about the 194(91.5%) of the thyroid lesion was identified as benign type and malignancy accounts for 18(8.5%) from the total conducted biopsy results of 212 patients. About six variables (duration of the disease, marital status, family history of the disease, nodularity, surface and border of the thyroid mass) were the candidate variables in binary logistic regression (p-value <0.25) and finally, three variables (duration of the disease (>10 years), surface (rough) and border (irregular) of the thyroid mass) were identified as the predictors of thyroid malignancy with AOR 0.05(0.004-0.60, P-v=0.016; 1.9(1.17-5.8), P-v=0.012 and 2.5(1.13-16.16), P-v<0.001 respectively.Conclusion and recommendation: The burden of malignancy was higher and alarming among thyroid diseases and warrants early screening and management.


Author(s):  
◽  
◽  

Introduction: A prospective study was carried out, with the aim of establishing the clinical manifestations of cholelithiasis in the population of Quito, Ecuador. Methods: During the period from January 2012 to October 2017, 534 patients were referred from different outpatient clinics of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security to the Batan Medical Center with the diagnosis of cholelithiasis after a clinical assessment and abdominal ultrasound, to be treated surgically. Results: Sixty-nine percent of patients were female with a male-female ratio of 1:2.21. Mean age was 44.9 years. Pain was the most common symptom in our study: 95.7%. Among these patients, pain was located in the epigastrium in 49.8%, in the right hypochondrium in 45.1% and only 0.8% had low back pain. Pain ranged from moderate and even severe. The remaining 4.3% of patients had dyspepsia or were asymptomatic. Conclusions: This finding highlights the fact that epigastric pain must be always considered as a clinical manifestation on cholelithiasis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hitomi Imafuku ◽  
Hideto Yamada ◽  
Akiko Uchida ◽  
Masashi Deguchi ◽  
Tokuro Shirakawa ◽  
...  

AbstractThis prospective cohort study aimed to determine clinical factors associated with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in pregnancy. Newborns born at a perinatal medical center received PCR analyses for CMV-DNA in their urine with informed consent. Clinical data, including age, maternal fever or flu-like symptoms, complications, ultrasound fetal abnormality, gestational weeks at delivery, and birth weight, were collected. Logistic regression analyses determined clinical findings associated with congenital CMV infection (cCMV). cCMV was diagnosed in 32 of 4380 pregnancies. Univariate and multivariable analyses revealed that age < 25 years old (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.1–6.6; p < 0.05), the presence of maternal fever or flu-like symptoms (5.4, 2.6–11.2; p < 0.01), ultrasound fetal abnormalities (12.7, 5.8–27.7; p < 0.01), and preterm delivery at less than 34 gestational weeks (2.6, 1.1–6.0; p < 0.05) were independent clinical findings associated with cCMV. A combination of maternal fever/flu-like symptoms, ultrasound fetal abnormalities, or preterm delivery at less than 34 gestational weeks as optimal predictive factors showed 90.6% sensitivity, 66.4% specificity, and a maximum Youden index of 0.57. CMV-DNA tests in the urine of newborns born to mothers with these clinical manifestations may be an effective method in detecting cCMV as a targeted screening with a high sensitivity.


2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matitiahu Lifshitz ◽  
Perez Kornmehl ◽  
Haim Reuveni

Objective: To determine the incidence of adverse drug reactions in patients with acetaminophen overdose following administration of intravenous acetylcysteine, and to evaluate the cost-benefit ratio of intravenous compared with oral acetylcysteine therapy. Methods: The incidence of adverse drug reactions to intravenous acetylcysteine therapy was studied retrospectively in all patients with acetaminophen overdose who were admitted to Soroka University Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel, from 1994 to 1998. Data were obtained from hospital records. All patients were treated with a 20-hour intravenous regimen according to the Prescott protocol. Special attention was paid to the clinical manifestations of adverse reactions, time of onset, and history of patient allergy and asthma. Cost of therapy (drug prices, hospital per diems) for intravenous versus oral acetylcysteine administration was evaluated in accordance with average rates prevailing in Israel in December 1998. Results: Ninety-two patients, 32 adolescents aged 12–18 years (mean ± SD 14.2 ± 1.9) and 60 adults aged 18–52 years (28.2 ± 3.2), were treated with intravenous acetylcysteine for acetaminophen overdose during the study period. Three patients (3.2%) developed adverse reactions: one adult presented with a maculopapular rash and pruritus, and two adolescents developed mild urticaria; no other adverse reactions were reported. All adverse reactions occurred during administration of the loading dose, 15–20 minutes after initiation of therapy. The reactions subsided a few hours after the acetylcysteine infusion was stopped and did not require antiallergy therapy. None of the three patients had a history of allergy. The 20-hour intravenous acetylcysteine protocol is approximately three times less expensive than the recommended oral regimen in terms of drug cost and length of hospitalization. Conclusions: Intravenous acetylcysteine is a relatively safe antidote for acetaminophen poisoning. The incidence rate of adverse reactions is low, and they are mild and easily controlled by termination of the infusion. We recommend intravenous acetylcysteine therapy, particularly for patients with vomiting caused by the acetaminophen overdose or by oral acetylcysteine therapy. The 20-hour intravenous acetylcysteine therapy has a cost-benefit advantage over oral therapy; however, the oral formulation is not approved by the FDA.


Cephalalgia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 765-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun Ah Choi ◽  
Mi Ji Lee ◽  
Hanna Choi ◽  
Chin-Sang Chung

Objectives To report demographics and characteristics of reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS) in the Korean cohort. Methods We prospectively recruited patients with definite (imaging-proven) RCVS and probable (imaging-negative) RCVS who visited Samsung Medical Center between June 2012 and September 2016. Clinical manifestations, neuroimaging, treatment, and clinical outcomes were evaluated in all patients. Characteristics of RCVS without typical causes (“idiopathic RCVS”) were compared with those of RCVS with identifiable causes (“secondary RCVS”). International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD)-3 beta criteria for 6.7.3 RCVS and 6.7.3.1 probable RCVS were tested. Results A total of 138 patients (104 definite and 34 probable RCVS) were included in this study. Patients with definite RCVS were predominantly female (85.6%) and middle-aged (mean, 50.7 [range, 23–82] years). Probable RCVS was associated with less female predominance (70.6%, p = 0.049), more typical manifestations ( p < 0.001), and none of neurological complications. One-hundred and one (97.1%) patients with definite RCVS had headache, but the typical “recurrent and/or triggered” thunderclap headache was reported in only 83 (82.2%). In most patients with definite RCVS (84.6%), RCVS was idiopathic, while only 16 (15.4%) had secondary causes. Compared to those with secondary RCVS, patients with idiopathic RCVS were older (52.8 ± 11.42 vs. 39.1 ± 9.55 years, p < 0.001). Patients with secondary RCVS had more complications than those with idiopathic RCVS (40.5% vs. 12.5%, p = 0.018). Among idiopathic RCVS patients, 33 (37.5%) reported a preceding event or a change in lifestyle, environment, health, or medication within one month before onset. Conclusion In our cohort, RCVS was benign and idiopathic in most patients, and occurred frequently in middle-aged women. Manifestations of RCVS were more diverse than previously recognized, and forms without any headache existed. Different genetic, social, and environmental factors should be taken into account to unveil the spectrum and pathophysiology of RCVS.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Zhao ◽  
Monika E Grabowska ◽  
Vern Eric Kerchberger ◽  
Joshua C. Smith ◽  
H. Nur Eken ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectiveIdentifying symptoms highly specific to COVID-19 would improve the clinical and public health response to infectious outbreaks. Here, we describe a high-throughput approach – Concept-Wide Association Study (ConceptWAS) that systematically scans a disease’s clinical manifestations from clinical notes. We used this method to identify symptoms specific to COVID-19 early in the course of the pandemic.MethodsUsing the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) EHR, we parsed clinical notes through a natural language processing pipeline to extract clinical concepts. We examined the difference in concepts derived from the notes of COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative patients on the PCR testing date. We performed ConceptWAS using the cumulative data every two weeks for early identifying specific COVID-19 symptoms.ResultsWe processed 87,753 notes 19,692 patients (1,483 COVID-19-positive) subjected to COVID-19 PCR testing between March 8, 2020, and May 27, 2020. We found 68 clinical concepts significantly associated with COVID-19. We identified symptoms associated with increasing risk of COVID-19, including “absent sense of smell” (odds ratio [OR] = 4.97, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.21–7.50), “fever” (OR = 1.43, 95% CI = 1.28–1.59), “with cough fever” (OR = 2.29, 95% CI = 1.75–2.96), and “ageusia” (OR = 5.18, 95% CI = 3.02–8.58). Using ConceptWAS, we were able to detect loss sense of smell or taste three weeks prior to their inclusion as symptoms of the disease by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).ConclusionConceptWAS is a high-throughput approach for exploring specific symptoms of a disease like COVID-19, with a promise for enabling EHR-powered early disease manifestations identification.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document