Can We Predict Which Children Will Arrest Soon After Intubation in the ED?

Carolyn K. Holland, MD, Med, FACEP, FAAP   Hypoxia prior to intubation strongly predicts post-intubation cardiac arrest in pediatric patients.   To identify risk factors for postintubation cardiac arrest in children, these authors retrospectively examined 543 endotracheal intubations performed at a single pediatric emergency department over 9 years. They conducted a nested case-control study... Read more..

Do Intubation Checklists Save Lives?

Lauren M. Westafer, MD, MPH, MS   A meta-analysis found no consistent association between use of endotracheal intubation checklists and either increased first-pass success or reduced mortality, peri-intubation arrest, or hypotension.   Intubation checklists have been widely adopted for use during endotracheal intubation in hopes of increasing the safety of this high-risk procedure, but... Read more..

Etomidate or Ketamine to Avoid Peri-Intubation Hypotension?

Benton R. Hunter, MD   In a large observational registry study, ketamine was associated with a higher risk for hypotensive events than etomidate.   Single-dose etomidate for emergency intubation is considered hemodynamically stable, but some authors have postulated that ketamine, which induces catecholamine release, may be safer for patients at risk for hypotension.   These authors... Read more..

Prone Positioning Can Help Oxygenation in Nonintubated Patients with COVID-19

Patricia Kritek, MD   But it's unclear whether proning ultimately prevents COVID-19–related deaths.   Prone positioning has been used for many years as an adjunct therapy for intubated patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians began using prone positioning for patients who were not yet intubated, with the... Read more..

Research Update: Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest, Video Laryngoscopy, and Respiratory Failure due to COVID-19

Dr. Calvin Brown and special guests, Dr. Susan Wilcox (Mass General Hospital) and Dr. Darren Braude (Univ of New Mexico), discuss recent research on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, standard-geometry v. hyperangulated video laryngoscopes, and respiratory failure due to COVID-19. Read more..