Category CCC

The LITFL Critical Care Compendium is a comprehensive collection of pages concisely covering the core topics and controversies of critical care.

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Staph Sepsis Acidosis

You are asked to review a 73 year old lady who is in hospital for treatment of septic arthritis affecting a prosthetic right hip joint inserted 5 years earlier.
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Waxing and Waning Weakness

A 50 year old Chinese female presents with severe weakness. She has a history of previous similar episodes that self-resolved. What's going on?
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Could it be renal colic?

Consider a 65 year-old male presenting with right-sided flank pain radiating to the groin. The following CT scan was taken to confirm a presumed diagnosis of renal colic:
CCC Critical Care compendium 340

Does Antivenom Work?

Antivenom is widely used for Australian envenoming syndromes. Antivenoms are generally perceived, by both clinicians and the general public, as highly effective treatments. However, there is little evidence to support this widely held view, in fact, the weight of evidence suggests that some antivenoms are ineffective in clinical practice.
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Near-infrared spectroscopy

OVERVIEW Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) NIRS is a non-invasive monitor of cerebral oxygenation. It is attracting a lot of interest currently but remains to be validated for use in guiding therapy or inferring prognosis in TBI…. References LITFL Nickson C. Bullet…

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Cricoid: To Press or Not to Press?

Just in case you still thought cricoid pressure was a good idea, listen John Hinds at smaccGOLD. Hinds was an anaesthetist, intensivist and a motorcycle-riding prehospital resuscitationist based in Northern Ireland. In this debate he will tell you about ‘cricolol‘.…

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Intralipid – myth or miracle?

Intralipid is one of the most exciting recent developments in clinical toxicology (right up there with high-dose insulin euglycemic therapy, aka HIET). We are rightly skeptical of any new therapy, especially one that promises so much. Nevertheless, many of the…

an abominable airway…

the case. a 28 year old male presents to your Emergency Department with a 2-3 week history of increasing neck swelling. He is now spitting out frank purulent discharge from his mouth and reports fevers and night sweats.