Herb-induced cardiotoxicity from accidental aconitine overdose.

Patients who overdose on aconite can present with life-threatening ventricular arrhythmia. Aconite must be prepared and used with caution to avoid cardiotoxic effects that can be fatal. We herein describe a case of a patient who had an accidental aconite overdose but survived with no lasting effects.

A randomised, double-blind, multi-centre trial comparing vasopressin and adrenaline in patients with cardiac arrest presenting to or in the Emergency Department.

Objective: To compare vasopressin and adrenaline in the treatment of patients with cardiac arrest presenting to or in the Emergency Department (ED).

Design: A randomised, double-blind, multi-centre, parallel-design clinical trial in four adult hospitals.

Method: Eligible cardiac arrest patients (confirmed by the absence of pulse, unresponsiveness and apnea) aged >16 (aged>21 for one hospital) were randomly assigned to intravenous adrenaline (1mg) or vasopressin (40 IU) at ED.

Reducing ambulance response times using geospatial-time analysis of ambulance deployment.

Objectives: This study aimed to determine if a deployment strategy based on geospatial-time analysis is able to reduce ambulance response times for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OOHCA) in an urban emergency medical services (EMS) system.

Methods: An observational prospective study examining geographic locations of all OOHCA in Singapore was conducted. Locations of cardiac arrests were spot-mapped using a geographic information system (GIS).