A Pediatric Cardiac POCUS Protocol
Scanning with a Little Heart
By Delia Gold, MD on 10/15/18 06:00 AM
The pediatric literature for point of care ultrasound seems to lag behind that of adults. However, it has made some incredible strides to show that this is a tool that is not be neglected in our younger patients. Although point of care ultrasound is used routinely in adults, it may not be as frequently employed in the pediatric emergency department. Clearly, there are differences in cardiac pathology encountered in pediatrics, but the ultrasound can still have great utility. The authors of this paper seek to increase the use of cardiac POCUS by collaborating with cardiologists to create a focused cardiac ultrasound protocol. They collect data to see what happened to POCUS use after they institute this protocol and to see how accurate these scans hold up in kids!
The Effect of POCUS on Abscess Treatment Failure
An RCT for POCUS I&D
By Michael Prats, MD on 10/01/18 06:00 AM
We know that ultrasound can be used to diagnose a superficial cutaneous abscess. That is NOT what this study is about. Forget diagnosing! What about actually helping your patients stay out of the emergency department? These authors performed this study with the hypothesis that using POCUS during the treatment of a superficial abscess might decrease the failure rate of the incision and drainage. That means ultrasound could help prevent patients from requiring additional treatment! They aren't messing around with retrospective chart reviews either - this is a real live randomized controlled trial.
POCUS in Hypotension
The Infamous SHOC-ED Trial
By Michael Prats, MD on 09/17/18 06:00 AM
Well the dust has somewhat settled from the initial explosion that this article made when it first hit street corners everywhere. The authors here took on an important question - does point of care ultrasound make a difference in mortality when applied to patients in shock? [SPOILER ALERT] It led to quite a stir when the trial concluded that (I'm paraphrasing here) - "POCUS doesn't help people". Although that conclusion may or may not be the case, this study was a well performed randomized controlled trial. Therefore, you need to know about it and where to go from here.