PEM Source

Your source for all things Pediatric Emergency Medicine

All posts with tag: "pulm"

PEM Questions

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What are pediatric emergency physicians seeing more of when COVID prevalence rises?

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You are sedating a 16 year old boy with past medical history of spontaneously resolved VSD as an infant with ketamine for tube thoracostomy to treat a spontaneous pneumothorax. Before the tube thoracostomy procedure can begin, the patient has a sudden episode of oxygen desaturation, lack of end-tidal CO2 waveform, and gurgling noises. It successfully resolves after a couple of minutes of bag-valve-mask ventilation, and the practitioners prepare to begin the procedure again. However, immediately thereafter the patient begins to cough up pink frothy secretions and to desaturate again, although the end-tidal CO2 waveform does not change this time. 

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(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) A 17 year old boy comes is brought in to the ED at 2am for severe retrosternal chest pain that awoke him from sleep. He was well prior to going to bed at 11:30pm, and denies fever, cough, radiation of the pain, vomiting, trauma, foreign body ingestion. He has a past medical history of appendectomy 8 months prior, acne for which he takes an oral antibiotic and uses a topical cream daily, and mild intermittent asthma for which he uses an inhaler once or twice a year "when the weather changes." He is a straight A student applying to colleges currently. His physical examination is normal, as is a CXR and ECG. What is the probable cause of his chest pain? [yop_poll id="28"]

Tips and Tricks

If your patient with asthma can only remember the color and shape of their inhaler, but not the name, have them look at this poster to identify their medications.

Respiratory virus season is here, and we all know that the FDA recommends against the use of OTC cough medications in children < 4 years old (due to too many adverse effects and lack of efficacy). Some studies have shown honey to be something useful we can recommend to frustrated parents, but how exactly is it administered? Studies tested from 2.5mL to 10gm (5mL of honey = ~ 7gm). Pulling the results together, 5mL of honey can be mixed in any non-caffeinated drink, such as warm lemon water, herbal tea, or warm skim milk, and given at bedtime or up to TID. Giving it longer than 3 days had no added benefit. There is some evidence that dark honey is more effective. (Oduwole et al Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2018 Apr 10;4:CD007094).
The Coach at PEMPlaybook.org has a great podcast on using the VBG in situations where we used to try to get an ABG (which was never fun to do in small children). From the podcast: the rule of 4’s: (note ABG values are always higher): VBG pH is 0.04 lower than ABG pH VBG pCO2 is 4 lower than ABG pCO2 VBG pO2 is approximately 40 lower than ABG pO2 The bottom line is that for most of our clinical concerns, we can use VBG to assess pH and pCO2, and O2 sat to assess oxygenation. VBG may be less reliable in shocky or hypercapneic patients (but end-tidal CO2 will be useful in hypercapneic patients). When do we really need an ABG? When we want to calculate the Aa gradient, looking for e.g. VQ mismatch, shunt, or a diffusion problem.

Controversies

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Note: controversies are not meant to have a “right” answer – they are to see how most people are practicing. Would love your comments also regarding your thought processes and the evidence behind your decisions. We can learn from each other!

You have diagnosed an 11 year old boy who has a PMH of mild intermittent asthma with COVID (he has been symptomatic with fever, vomiting, cough, and myalgias for 2 days). Currently, his RR is 20, SaO2 98% on room air, and his lungs are clear to auscultation. He has home albuterol MDI with spacer available. You discharge him with a portable pulse oximeter. For what persistent SaO2 would you tell the parent to bring him back to the ED?

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(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) Note: conundrums are not meant to have a “right” answer – they are to see how most people are practicing. Would love your comments also regarding your thought processes and the evidence behind your decisions. We can learn from each other! An 8yo patient with history of mild intermittent asthma comes in with an acute exacerbation that clears readily with 1 treatment of nebulized albuterol. The patient has had 2 similar ED visits in the last 3 months. The patient has an albuterol MDI for home use, but no spacer. The patient is not on any controller medications. The respiratory therapist has taught the patient/parents how to use the MDI properly with a spacer, and you are discharging the patient home. [poll id="26"]
(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) Note: conundrums are not meant to have a “right” answer – they are to see how most people are practicing. Would love your comments also regarding your thought processes and the evidence behind your decisions. We can learn from each other! [poll id="20"]
It's RSV season and you're seeing a 30 day old ex-39 week infant with a runny nose. The resident has ordered a POC RSV, which is positive. The baby is afebrile, feeding well, and nontoxic. Do you admit the infant just for being RSV positive due to the risk of apnea in this age group? [poll id="11"]
You are seeing a 6 year old with a wet-sounding cough for 4 days and fever to 39 C for 3 days. You hear crackles in the right lower lobe; there is no wheezing. CXR shows no infiltrates. Do you diagnose a "clinical pneumonia" with false negative CXR and treat with antibiotics? [poll id="10"]
Vote! But for something other than President... You are seeing a 3mo old with clinical bronchiolitis who is otherwise well-appearing, tolerating po's, not in significant respiratory distress, afebrile, has good follow-up. At what O2 sat do you admit the patient for supplementary O2? The AAP says: aap-bronchiolitis-o2-sat [poll id="9"]

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