LITFL Review 170

Welcome to the 170th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest, and deliver a bite-sized chunk of Global FOAM.

The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week

Rory Spiegel offers an in-depth look at the endovascular study triad recently released (MR CLEAN, EXTEND-IA and ESCAPE) to treat acute ischemic strokes, and why we should be cautiously optimistic that a small subset of patients have been identified in whom this therapy can be greatly beneficial. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine

• More free content from HIPPO EM. Amal Mattu discusses the low risk chest pain ADP he uses in the ED. [AS]
• emDocs has a great review on the evaluation of the dizzy patient. [MG]
• Have you heard of hands on defibrillation? This week, the SGEM reviews the evidence, and their conclusion may be… shocking. [MG]
• Great core content review of minor head trauma from FOAMCast. [AS]
• Fantastic #FOAMed site from Neel Bhanderi and a great post on the approach to a pregnant patient with a suspected PE. [SL]

The Best of #FOAMcc Critical Care

• Beware the RV spiral of death!  Want to understand the crashing PE patient better?  EMCRIT this week has a great lecture from their conference by Oren Friedman. [CC]
• Here’s a lovely little tip on laryngoscopy from the folks at the Alfred ICU. Remember to engage the hypoepiglottic ligament, folks… [SO]
• Burnout and psychological illness occur at a significant rate amongst intensivists. Deb Chalmers writes an incredibly thoughtful post reminding us how important it is to look after ourselves. “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long”… [SO]

The Best of #FOAMtox Toxicology

• Leon Gussow reviews the latest from the EXTRIP workgroup on the use of haemodialysis for acute methanol poisoning [JAR]
• The next episode of ToxTalk is out and it’s on one of the most infamous Toxoversies: Intralipid! [JAR]
• How often do toxicologists use physostigmine? An article from the TOXIC registry is reviewed by Dr Gussow [JAR]
• What’s the optimal method of cooling patients with severe hyperthermia? The Poison Review discusses a case series of patients treated with ice water bath immersion. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMus Ultrasound

• Does the use of POCUS for assessing the IVC predict fluid responsiveness? An interesting review from HEFTEMcast [CC]
• Beautiful images from Ultrasound of the Week #38, with a case of a lady brought in after a road traffic accident. Can you spot the sign? [SO]
• Echopraxis.com is a wonderful new critical care echo resource from a bunch of echo-mad intensivists in Australia. It’s brilliant. Why not get started with this post on a lady struggling to get to her letterbox? (thanks to Oli Flower and Adrian Wong for the tip) [SO]

The Best of #FOAMped Pediatrics

• St. Emlyn’s reviews the current state of antibiotic therapy in acute otitis media. [AS]

The Best of #MedEd FOAM and #FOAMsim

• Looking for a fantastic resource for OSCE revision or clinical skills? Check out this awesome resource from Nick Smith at CMFTUGME. [SL]

LITFL Weekly Review Team

Reference Sources and Reading List

• #FOAMed – #FOAMcc – #FOAMres
• #FOAMped – #FOAMtox – #FOAMus
• #FOAMim – #FOANed