CJEM Articles: Dean Fergusson

Displaying 1-2 of 2 results

  • Evaluation of the incidence, risk factors, and impact on patient outcomes of postintubation hemodynamic instability
    March 2012 14 2
    Dean Fergusson, Elham Sabri, Janet Edwards, Robert S. Green

     Objectives:
    Postintubation hemodynamic instability (PIHI) is a potentially life-threatening adverse event of emergent endotracheal intubation. The objectives of this study were to determine the incidence, risk factors, and impact on patient outcomes associated with PIHI in intubations performed in emergency medicine.
    Methods:
    A structured chart audit was performed of all consecutive adult patients requiring emergent endotracheal intubations over a 16-month period at a tertiary care emergency department (ED). Data collection included medications, comorbidities, vital signs in the 30 minutes before and after intubation, hospital length of stay, and in-hospital mortality. PIHI was defined as a decrease in systolic blood pressure (SBP) to ≤ 90 mm Hg, a decrease in SBP of ≥ 20% from baseline, a decrease in mean arterial pressure to ≤ 65 mm Hg, or the initiation of any vasopressor medication at any time in the 30 minutes following intubation.
    Results:
    Overall, 218 patients intubated in the ED were identified, and 44% (96 of 218) developed PIHI. On multivariate analysis, increasing age (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01–1.05), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR 3.00, CI 1.19–7.57), and pre–emergent endotracheal intubation hemodynamic instability (OR 2.52, 95% CI 1.27–4.99) were associated with the development of PIHI. The use of a neuromuscular blocking medication was associated with a decreased incidence of PIHI (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.16–0.75).
    Conclusions:
    Based on our data, postintubation hypotension occurs in a significant proportion of ED patients requiring emergent airway control. Further investigation is needed to confirm the factors we found to be associated with PIHI and to determine if PIHI is associated with increased morbidity and mortality.

  • Do β-blockers reduce short-term mortality following acute myocardial infarction? A systematic review and meta-analysis
    May 2008 10 3
    Abdullah Al-Reesi, Dean Fergusson, Ian Stiell, Jeff Perry, Majid Al-Thagafi, Mohammed Al-Shamsi, Nabil Al-Zadjali

    Objective: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains a major cause of death and β-blockers are known to reduce long-term mortality in post-AMI patients. We sought to determine whether patients receiving β-blockers acutely (within 72 h) following AMI had a lower mortality rate at 6 weeks than patients receiving placebo.

    Methods: We conducted a systematic review of randomized controlled clinical trials that assessed 6-week mortality and compared β-blockers with placebo in patients randomized within the first 72 hours following AMI. We searched these databases: MEDLINE (1966-2006), EMBASE (1980-2007), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Health Star (1966-2007), Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews, ACP Journal Club (1991-2007), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effect (< 1st quarter 2007) and Conference Papers Index (1984-2007). Two blinded reviewers extracted the data and rated study quality using the Jadad score and the adequacy of allocation concealment score, which was adopted by the Cochrane group. We calculated pooled odds ratios (ORs) using a random effect model and performed sensitivity analyses to explore the stability of the overall treatment effect.

    Results: We included 18 studies (13 were rated high-quality) with 74 643 enrolled participants and had 5095 deaths. Compared with placebo, adding β-blockers to other interventions within 72 hours after AMI did not result in a statistically significant reduction in 6-week mortality (OR 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.90-1.01). When restricted to high quality studies, the OR for 6-week mortality reduction was 0.96 (95% CI 0.91-1.02). We found similar results including studies that enrolled patients within 24 hours after AMI. However, a subgroup analysis that excluded high-risk patients with Killip class III and above showed that β-blockers resulted in a significant reduction in short-term mortality (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.88-0.99).

    Conclusion: Acute intervention with β-blockers does not result in a statistically significant short-term survival benefit following AMI but may be beneficial for low-risk (Killip class I) patients.