Background Lupus myocarditis (LM) is reported in 3-9% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) but limited evidence exists regarding optimal treatment and prognosis. This study aims to describe LM in a defined lupus cohort as compared with the existing literature. Patients and methods Patients with LM were identified from the University of Toronto Lupus Clinic database. Diagnosis was based on clinical manifestations and electrocardiographic, imaging, and biochemical criteria. Demographic, clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic variables and outcomes were collected in a standardized data retrieval form. A literature review was performed to identify cohort studies reporting on LM treatment and outcome. A comparative analysis was conducted between our patients and the combined cohort of the existing studies. Results Thirty patients were diagnosed with LM (prevalence 1.6%) and compared with a cumulative cohort of 117 patients from five distinct studies. No significant differences were found regarding the age at diagnosis (32.6 ± 13.4 years) and SLE duration (2.5 years median). Concomitant lupus activity from other organ systems was observed in 97% of the patients. Chest pain was more frequently reported in our cohort whereas dyspnea was more prominent in the other studies. Diagnostic criteria were similar across studies. Therapeutic approach was comparable and consisted of glucocorticosteroids (96.6%) and immunosuppressives (70%). Mortality was approximately 20% whereas another 20% of the patients achieved partial and 60% complete recovery. Conclusions LM usually occurs early in the disease course and in the context of generalized lupus activity. Despite aggressive therapy, approximately 40% of the patients died or had residual heart damage.

Background: Airway guidelines recommend an emergency surgical airway as a potential life-saving treatment in a "Can't Intubate, Can't Oxygenate" (CICO) situation. Surgical airways can be achieved either through a cricothyroidotomy or tracheostomy. The current literature has limited data regarding complications of cricothyroidotomy and tracheostomy in an emergency situation. The objective of this systematic review is to analyze complications following cricothyroidotomy and tracheostomy in airway emergencies. Methods: This synthesis of literature was exempt from ethics approval. Eight databases were searched from inception to October 2018, using a comprehensive search strategy. Studies were included if they were randomized controlled trials or observational studies reporting complications following emergency surgical airway. Complications were classified as minor (evolving to spontaneous remission or not requiring intervention or not persisting chronically), major (requiring intervention or persisting chronically), early (from the start of the procedure up to 7 days) and late (beyond 7 days of the procedure). Results: We retrieved 2659 references from our search criteria. Following the removal of duplicates, title and abstract review, 33 articles were selected for full-text reading. Twenty-one articles were finally included in the systematic review. We found no differences in minor, major or early complications between the two techniques. However, late complications were significantly more frequent in the tracheostomy group [OR (95% CI) 0.21 (0.20-0.22), p < 0.0001]. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that cricothyroidotomies performed in emergent situations resulted in fewer late complications than tracheostomies. This finding supports the recommendations from the latest Difficult Airway Society (DAS) guidelines regarding using cricothyroidotomy as the technique of choice for emergency surgical airway. However, emergency cricothyroidotomies should be converted to tracheostomies in a timely fashion as there is insufficient evidence to suggest that emergency cricothyrotomies are long term airways.

Background Neuraxial anesthesia is conventionally performed using a landmark-based technique. Preprocedural ultrasound is often used in challenging clinical scenarios to identify an ideal needle path. The procedure is then carried out by the operator recreating the ultrasound needle path from memory. We suggest that a needle guidance system using the Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headset, which projects a hologram of the ideal needle path, can assist operators in replicating the correct needle angulation and result in fewer needle passes. Objective The objective of the study was to develop software for the mixed reality HoloLens headset, which could be used to augment the performance of neuraxial anesthesia, and establish its face validity in lumbar spine phantom models. Methods We developed an ultrasound transducer marker and software for the HoloLens, which registers the position and angulation of the ultrasound transducer during preprocedural scans. Once an image of a clear path from skin to the intrathecal space is acquired, a hologram of the ideal needle path is projected onto the user’s visual field. The ultrasound probe is removed while the hologram remains in the correct spatial position to visualize the needle trajectory during the procedure as if conducting real-time ultrasound. User testing was performed using a lumbar spine phantom. Results Preliminary work demonstrates that novice (2 anesthesia residents) and experienced operators (5 attending anesthesiologists) can rapidly learn to use mixed reality holograms to perform neuraxial anesthesia on lumbar spine phantoms. Conclusions Our study shows promising results for performing neuraxial anesthesia in phantoms using the HoloLens. Although this may have wide-ranging implications for image-guided therapies, further study is required to quantify the accuracy and safety benefit of using holographic guidance. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04028284; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04028284

Background Airway guidelines recommend an emergency surgical airway as a potential life-saving treatment in a “Can’t Intubate, Can’t Oxygenate” (CICO) situation. Surgical airways can be achieved either through a cricothyroidotomy or tracheostomy. The current literature has limited data regarding complications of cricothyroidotomy and tracheostomy in an emergency situation, such as in a CICO scenario. The objective of this systematic review is to analyze complications following cricothyroidotomy and tracheostomy in this situation. Methods This synthesis of literature was exempt from ethics approval. Eight databases were searched from inception to October 2018, using a comprehensive search strategy. Studies were included if they were randomized controlled trials or observational studies reporting complications following emergency surgical airway. Complications were classified as minor (evolving to spontaneous remission or not requiring intervention or not persisting chronically), major (requiring intervention or persisting chronically), early (from the start of the procedure up to seven days) and late (beyond seven days of the procedure). Results We retrieved 2,659 references from our search criteria. Following the removal of duplicates, title and abstract review, 33 articles were selected for full-text reading. 21 articles were finally included in the systematic review. We found no differences in minor, major or early complications between the two techniques. However, late complications were significantly more frequent in the tracheostomy group [OR (95% CI) 0.21 (0.20-0.22), p<0.0001]. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that cricothyroidotomies performed in emergent situations resulted in fewer late complications than tracheostomies. This may be indicative that cricothyroidotomy is safer than tracheostomy as an emergency surgical airway. This finding supports the recommendations from the latest Difficult Airway Society (DAS) guidelines regarding using cricothyroidotomy as the technique of choice for emergency surgical airway in a CICO situation.