Rapid HIV Testing in a New Orleans Emergency Department is Effective in Identifying New HIV Diagnoses and in Linking Patients to Care.

A retrospective chart review of patients who agreed to a rapid HIV test in the emergency department in the initial year of institution of the rapid test was conducted. Out of 8,204 patients, 99 were newly diagnosed with HIV in the first year of the institution of the rapid HIV test (1.2%).

Better hemostatic profiles of never-frozen liquid plasma compared with thawed fresh frozen plasma.

Background: Immediate use of thawed fresh frozen plasma (FFP) when resuscitating hemorrhagic shock patients has become more common. According to the AABB (formerly known as American Association of Blood Banks), FFP is the preferred product that can be used up to 5 days after thawing. However, limited data exist on the clinical use and hemostatic profiles of Food and Drug Administration-approved liquid plasma (LQP), which can be stored at 1 °C to 6 °C for up to 26 days.

Damage control resuscitation: from emergency department to the operating room.

Damage control surgery emphasizes limited operations with control of bleeding and contamination. Traditional management centered upon correction of acidosis and hypotension with crystalloids. Damage control resuscitation (DCR) is permissive hypotension and early hemostatic resuscitation combined identified and corrects coagulopathy with fresh-frozen plasma (FFP), restricting use of crystalloids.

Damage control resuscitation in combination with damage control laparotomy: a survival advantage.

Background: Damage control laparotomy (DCL) improves outcomes when used in patients with severe hemorrhage. Correction of coagulopathy with close ratio resuscitation while limiting crystalloid forms a new methodology known as damage control resuscitation (DCR). We hypothesize a survival advantage in DCL patients managed with DCR when compared with DCL patients managed with conventional resuscitation efforts (CRE).

Hemostatic resuscitation during surgery improves survival in patients with traumatic-induced coagulopathy.

Background: Although hemostatic resuscitation with a 1:1 ratio of fresh-frozen plasma (FFP) to packed red blood cells (PRBC) after severe hemorrhage has been shown to improve survival, its benefit in patients with traumatic-induced coagulopathy (TIC) after >10 units of PRBC during operation has not been elucidated. We hypothesized that a survival benefit would occur when early hemostatic resuscitation was used intraoperatively after injury in patients with TIC.

Methods: A 7-year retrospective study of patients with emergency department diagnosis of TIC after transfusion of >10 units of PRBC in the operating room.

Current evidence based guidelines for factor VIIa use in trauma: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Recombinant factor VII (rFVIIa) has arisen as an option for the control of life-threatening traumatic bleeding unresponsive to other means. The timing of administration, dosage, mortality, units of blood transfusion saved, risk of thrombotic events, and risk/benefits ratio are presently poorly defined. A Medline search from 1995 through March 2008 was conducted.

Performance characteristics of a quantitative TaqMan hepatitis C virus RNA analyte-specific reagent.

We determined the dynamic range, reproducibility, accuracy, genotype bias, and sensitivity of the TaqMan hepatitis C virus (HCV) analyte-specific reagent (ASR). Serum samples were processed using the MagNA Pure LC instrument and run on the COBAS TaqMan 48 analyzer. The performance characteristics of the ASR were also compared with those of the qualitative AMPLICOR and quantitative AMPLICOR MONITOR HCV tests.