Objective
Operational delays have the potential to lead to suboptimal time to seizure control during status epilepticus. Levetiracetam (LEV) is an urgent control antiepileptic medication that offers relative lack of adverse effects and ease of monitoring. There are limited data published demonstrating safety and tolerability of undiluted rapid intravenous (IV) push of LEV in doses of 1000 mg or less. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety of IV push administration of LEV doses up to 4500 mg.
Methods
This is a retrospective, observational, cohort analysis of adult patients who received at least one dose of undiluted IV push LEV from October 15, 2019 to August 31, 2020 at a large academic medical center in Phoenix, Arizona. Outcomes of interest include safety and tolerability of rapid administration of undiluted LEV.
Results
There were 953 unique patients included during the study period. LEV was a new medication for witnessed or suspected seizure in 51.9% of patients, and 40.7% of patients had a documented history of epilepsy or seizure disorder. There were 8561 undiluted IV push LEV doses administered, 3674 (42.9%) of which were greater than 1000 mg. LEV was administered most often through a peripheral IV (79.1%). There were 12 patients with documented adverse drug events during the study period, with four potentially directly related to IV push LEV administration. These events were limited to local injection site reactions and included redness, burning, and loss of a peripheral IV line.
Significance
Rapid IV administration of undiluted LEV is both safe and tolerable in doses of up to 4500 mg, allowing for rapid drug administration, which is paramount during neurologic emergencies.
Background The epidemic of opioid-related overdose in the United States prompted a public health response that included implementation of opioid prescribing guidelines and restrictions. Such directives, however, were not applicable to hospitalized trauma patients. We hypothesized that although prescribing mandates did not apply to hospitalized trauma patients, inpatient opioid administration had nonetheless decreased over time. Methods Opioid administrations for each patient admitted to a level I trauma center between January 1, 2016 and July 31, 2020 were converted into oral morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) and summed at the patient level to obtain a total amount of MME administered for each hospitalization. MME was natural log transformed to achieve a normal distribution. General linear models were then used to determine the average patient MME administered by year. Patients who were pregnant or mechanically ventilated during their hospitalization were excluded. Results Six thousand five hundred ninety-four patients were included in our analysis, of which 5037 (76.4%) were treated with opioids during their hospitalization (morphine 72.7%, oxycodone 9.6%, tramadol 10.2%, fentanyl 5.5%, and hydromorphone 2.1%). The percentage of patients administered an opioid decreased stepwise from 79.3% in 2016 to 71.4% in 2020 (P < .001). For patients administered opioids, a 28% decrease in average total MME from 2016 to 2020 (P < .001) was observed. When stratified by ISS (<9, 9-15, 16+), average total MME consistently trended downward over time. Conclusion Our trauma center realized a stepwise reduction in opioid administration in the absence of rules or restrictions surrounding in-hospital opioid prescribing.
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