, Abstract-Background: Emergency physicians regularly encounter agitated patients. In extremely agitated and violent patients, the onset of many traditional medications is relatively slow and often requires additional medication. Ketamine is frequently used in emergency departments (EDs) for procedural sedation and intubation, but has recently been suggested as a treatment for acute agitation. Objectives: We sought to examine the use of ketamine in the treatment of acute agitation in an ED setting, including vital sign changes as a result of this medication. Methods: This is a structured review of an historical cohort of patients over 7 years at two university EDs. Patients were included if they received ketamine as treatment for acute agitation. Abstracted data included age, vital signs including hypoxia, any additional medications for agitation, and alcohol/drug intoxication. Results: Ketamine was administered for agitation on 32 visits involving 27 patients. Preadministration systolic blood pressure was 131 ± 20 mm Hg, with an average postadministration increase of 17 ± 25 mm Hg. The average baseline heart rate was 98 ± 23 beats/min, with an average increase of 8 ± 17 beats/min. No patients became hypoxic; 62.5% of patients required additional calming medication. Alcohol or drug intoxication was present in 40.6% of patients. Conclusions: We found ketamine was used rarely, but had few major adverse effects on vital signs even in a population with 21.9% alcohol intoxication. However, a high proportion (62.5%) of patients required additional pharmacologic treatment for agitation, implying that administering ketamine is useful only for initial control of severe agitation. Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc.

Substantial bladder volume changes during the treatment course occurred even though patients were treated under a full bladder/daily image-guided protocol. Larger bladder volumes resulted in less bladder wall spared at the posterior-inferior sector, regardless the treatment received. Contrary, larger bladder volumes meant larger delivered doses to the superior bladder sector for pelvic RT but smaller doses for local treatments.

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PurposeCryotherapy is an option for the primary treatment of localized prostate cancer, along with radical prostatectomy, external beam radiation therapy, and brachytherapy. Although it is known that local recurrence can occur in >20% of patients treated with primary cryotherapy, unfortunately there is a paucity of data on later salvage treatments. The use of external beam radiation therapy is an attractive option after cryotherapy failure, but there is little data on its efficacy and toxicity. We evaluated the biochemical control and complication rates of salvage dose-escalated image guided intensity modulated radiation therapy (IG-IMRT) after cryotherapy failure.Methods and materialsPatients who were treated at our institution from 2005 to 2016 were reviewed for those who underwent cryotherapy as initial treatment followed by salvage IGRT. Patients were treated with dose-escalated IG-IMRT using standard treatment margins of 3 mm posterior and 7 mm in all other directions and daily cone beam computed tomography or kv imaging to implanted fiducial markers. Biochemical progression was defined in accordance with the Phoenix consensus conference definition.ResultsEight patients were identified as having received post-cryotherapy salvage radiation within the study period. The median total dose was 77.7 Gy (range, 75.6-81.0 Gy). Median follow-up was 55 months (range, 6-88 months). Six patients remained biochemically controlled at the latest follow-up. One patient developed distant metastases after 22 months and one experienced biochemical failure at 30 months with no evidence of distant metastases. No patients experienced acute gastrointestinal toxicities of grade 2 or higher. There were no cases of late gastrointestinal or genitourinary toxicity.ConclusionsHigh-dose IG-IMRT results in high rates of salvage and extremely low rates of serious late toxicity for patients with locally recurrent prostate cancer after cryotherapy. Although the results are encouraging, given the small number of patients in this and other series, we remain cautious with regard to this treatment and believe the use of salvage radiation therapy after cryotherapy warrants further study.