Guidelines for the Management of Heart Failure

Some new guidelines to be aware of are the AHA Guidelines for the Management of Heart Failure. Full text is available free and while comprehensively covering chronic heart failure there is an interesting section on acute decompensated heart failure.
Evidence-based medicine enthusiasts might be interested in recommendations to consider dopamine, nesiritide, and ultrafiltration. These therapies also get a mention in the 2012 European Guidelines. I recommend you review the articles cited in the guidelines to make your own mind up.
Here are a couple of snippets you may find useful:


Snippet from American Guidelines: intravenous loop diuretic doses

“HF patients receiving loop diuretic therapy should receive an initial parenteral dose greater than or equal to their chronic oral daily dose; then dose should be serially adjusted.”


Snippet from European Guidelines: management algorithm for acute heart failure

Click to enlarge

AHF-ESC

2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure: Executive Summary
Circulation. 2013 Oct 15;128(16):1810-52 Free Full Text
ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure 2012
Eur Heart J. 2012 Jul;33(14):1787-847 Free Full Text

Avoiding intubation in ARDS with awake ECMO

ECMOillusiconA letter in Intensive Care Medicine by Hoeper and colleagues from Hannover describes a small case series of six ARDS patients with severe hypoxaemia who went straight from non-invasive ventilation to awake veno-venous ECMO. All had single organ failure and four were immunocompromised, the latter factor influencing the decision to try to avoid invasive mechanical ventilation. Four of the six patients survived to hospital discharge. A larger multicentre study is being planned.

Clinical illustration courtesy of Dr Brian Burns

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation instead of invasive mechanical ventilation in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome
Intensive Care Med. 2013 Nov;39(11):2056-2057 (no abstract)

Even the dead exhale CO2

cadaverETCO2iconCardiac arrest patients sometimes have unrecognised oesophageal intubations because clinicians omit capnography, based on the assumption that circulatory arrest leads to an absence of exhaled CO2. This is wrong, and reassuringly the latest ILCOR cardiac arrest guidelines recommend waveform capnography during resuscitation.
Of interest is the fact that even corpses have CO2 in their lungs. While not clinically relevant, this may have value when fresh frozen cadavers are used for airway training, since we might be able to supplement the realism of airway instrumentation with the realism of connecting the capnography adaptor and circuit and seeing confirmation on the monitor.
This preliminary study, completed by my Sydney HEMS colleagues, needs further work, but it’s an interesting area.
Sustained life-like waveform capnography after human cadaveric tracheal intubation
Emerg Med J doi:10.1136/emermed-2013-203105
[EXPAND Abstract]


Introduction Fresh frozen cadavers are effective training models for airway management. We hypothesised that residual carbon dioxide (CO2) in cadaveric lung would be detectable using standard clinical monitoring systems, facilitating detection of tracheal tube placement and further enhancing the fidelity of clinical simulation using a cadaveric model.

Methods The tracheas of two fresh frozen unembalmed cadavers were intubated via direct laryngoscopy. Each tracheal tube was connected to a self-inflating bag and a sidestream CO2 detector. The capnograph display was observed and recorded in high-definition video. The cadavers were hand-ventilated with room air until the capnometer reached zero or the waveform approached baseline.

Results A clear capnographic waveform was produced in both cadavers on the first postintubation expiration, simulating the appearances found in the clinical setting. In cadaver one, a consistent capnographic waveform was produced lasting over 100 s. Maximal end-tidal CO2 was 8.5 kPa (65 mm Hg). In cadaver two, a consistent capnographic waveform was produced lasting over 50 s. Maximal end-tidal CO2 was 5.9 kPa (45 mm Hg).

Conclusions We believe this to be the first work to describe and quantify detectable end-tidal capnography in human cadavers. We have demonstrated that tracheal intubation of fresh frozen cadavers can be confirmed by life-like waveform capnography. This requires further validation in a larger sample size.

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