Airway ultrasound is now possible in the prehospital setting due to advances in ultrasound equipment portability. We questioned how well prehospital providers without prior experience could determine both esophageal and tracheal placement of an endotracheal tube in cadavers after a brief training course in ultrasound. Methods This educational prospective study at the Simulation Center in Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Florida enrolled 50 prehospital providers. Demographic and practice background information was obtained through surveys. Each participant performed a baseline ultrasound to determine endotracheal tube placement in a cadaver that was randomly assigned to an esophageal or tracheal intubation. Participants then repeated the randomized testing after a 15-minute tutorial. Before and after overall accuracy as well as proportions of correct identification of esophageal and tracheal intubations were determined and compared using standard binomial proportion and McNemar's tests. Results None of the participants had prior experience of performing airway ultrasound. Baseline group scores were 60% (CI 45%-74%) for overall accuracy (n=50), 55% (CI 32%-76%) for correct identification of an esophageal intubation, and 64% (CI 44%-81%) for correct tracheal detection. Baseline scores were not significantly different from standard binomial distributions. Post-test scores were 82% (CI 69%-91%) for overall accuracy, 96% (CI 80%-100%) for esophageal intubation detection, and 66.7% (CI 45%-84%) for tracheal intubation detection, with corresponding binomial p-values of <0.001, <0.001, and 0.15. P-values for McNemar's paired test for combined overall accuracy, correct esophageal detection, and correct tracheal detection were 0.04, 0.02, and 0.62, respectively. Conclusions Prehospital participants without prior ultrasound experience demonstrated significant gains in airway ultrasound proficiency after a limited introductory course. Post-training score increases 1 2 3 4 5 6
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing worldwide pandemic infection. The exact incidence of disease re-infection or recurrence remains unknown. One particular at-risk population includes individuals with solid organ transplantation on immunosuppression. We present a case of COVID-19 re-infection in a chronically immunocompromised liver transplant patient. A 53-year-old female presented to the Emergency Department (ED) with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and myalgias. She was found to test positive for COVID-19. Her relevant medical history included liver transplantation on chronic immunosuppression. More recently, she had tested positive for COVID-19 approximately three months prior to this and was hospitalized at that time for encephalopathy and treated with remdesivir and convalescent plasma. She had subsequently recovered with negative COVID-19 testing in the interim. On the ED presentation with presumed re-infection, her disease was deemed to be mild with lack of severe symptoms or pulmonary involvement, and she was discharged with outpatient follow-up for monoclonal antibody infusion therapy. We describe a scenario of presumed COVID-19 re-infection in a liver transplant patient. To our knowledge, this is a rare event and has been reported internationally in only a handful of individuals. We surmise that immunosuppression could offer some protection from the inflammatory cascade of the initial disease process in COVID-19 given the relatively mild disease observed in our patient. On the other hand, a less robust immune response may decrease humoral immunity and leave patients at greater risk of re-infection. Further investigation is necessary to delineate COVID-19 disease re-infection versus relapse, especially in the setting of an immunocompromised state.
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