Perioperative glucocorticoid prescribing habits in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a call for standardization.

Importance: High-dose glucocorticoids (GCs) are routinely given to surgical patients with a history of GC exposure to prevent perioperative acute adrenal insufficiency, but this practice is not well supported.

Objective: To evaluate the variability of perioperative GC dosing among patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) undergoing major abdominal surgery.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This was a retrospective study of 49 patients with IBD undergoing colorectal surgery at a single institution between July 2010 and August 2011.

Comparison of intensive care unit medication errors reported to the United States' MedMarx and the United Kingdom's National Reporting and Learning System: a cross-sectional study.

The objective was to compare the characteristics of medication errors reported to 2 national error reporting systems by conducting a cross-sectional analysis of errors reported from adult intensive care units to the UK National Reporting and Learning System and the US MedMarx system. Outcome measures were error types, severity of patient harm, stage of medication process, and involved medications. The authors analyzed 2837 UK error reports and 56 368 US reports.

Changing trends in the use of seizure prophylaxis after traumatic brain injury: a shift from phenytoin to levetiracetam.

Purpose: Current guidelines for traumatic brain injury (TBI) recommend antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) for 7 days after injury to decrease posttraumatic seizure risk. Phenytoin decreases seizure risk 73% vs placebo during this time. Levetiracetam (LEV) is an alternative; however, no published data validate comparable efficacy.