In critically ill patients presenting to the emergency department with early septic shock, EGDT did not reduce all-cause mortality at 90 days. (Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and the Alfred Foundation; ARISE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00975793.).

No abstract

EGDT is not superior to usual care for ED patients with septic shock but is associated with increased utilisation of ICU resources.

Objectives: To test the agreement between the visual analogue scale (VAS) and a verbal numeric rating scale (VNRS) in measuring acute pain, and measure the minimum clinically significant change in VNRS. Methods: Patients scored their pain by the VAS and the VNRS, then re‐scored their pain every 30 min for up to 2 h. Patients also recorded whether their pain had improved or worsened. Agreement between scores was evaluated, and where patients scored their pain as ‘a bit worse’ or ‘a bit better’ the mean change in VNRS was calculated. Results: A total of 309 paired observations were obtained from 79 patients. The VAS and VNRS were highly correlated (r = 0.95, 95% CI 0.94–0.96). The VNRS was significantly higher than the VAS for the paired observations, with 95% of the differences between VAS and VNRS lying between −2.3 and 1.3 cm. The minimum clinically significant difference in VNRS was 1.4 cm (95% CI 1.2–1.6). Conclusions: The VNRS performs as well as the VAS in assessing changes in pain. However, although the VAS and VNRS are well correlated, patients systematically score their pain higher on the VNRS, with an unacceptably wide distribution of the differences.

No abstract

Objective To examine the relative benefits and disadvantages of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and opioids for the management of acute renal colic. Data sources Cochrane Renal Group's specialised register, Cochrane central register of controlled trials, Medline, Embase, and reference lists of retrieved articles. Review methods Randomised controlled trials comparing any opioid with any NSAID in acute renal colic if they reported any of the following outcomes: patient rated pain, time to pain relief, need for rescue analgesia, rate of recurrence of pain, and adverse events. Results 20 trials totalling 1613 participants were identified. Both NSAIDs and opioids led to clinically important reductions in patient reported pain scores. Pooled analysis of six trials showed a greater reduction in pain scores for patients treated with NSAIDs than with opioids. Patients treated with NSAIDs were significantly less likely to require rescue analgesia (relative risk 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.61 to 0.93). Most trials showed a higher incidence of adverse events in patients treated with opioids. Compared with patients treated with opioids, those treated with NSAIDs had significantly less vomiting (0.35, 0.23 to 0.53). Pethidine was associated with a higher rate of vomiting. Conclusions Patients receiving NSAIDs achieve greater reductions in pain scores and are less likely to require further analgesia in the short term than those receiving opioids. Opioids, particularly pethidine, are associated with a higher rate of vomiting.

For childhood gastroenteritis, enteral rehydration is as effective if not better than IV rehydration. Enteral rehydration by the oral or nasogastric route is associated with significantly fewer major adverse events and a shorter hospital stay compared with IV therapy and is successful in most children.

No abstract