BACKGROUND: Fever in patients can provide an important clue to the etiology of a patient's symptoms. Non-invasive temperature sites (oral, axillary, temporal) may be insensitive due to a variety of factors. This has not been well studied in adult emergency department patients. To determine whether emergency department triage temperatures detected fever adequately when compared to a rectal temperature. METHODS: A retrospective chart review was made of 27130 adult patients in a high volume, urban emergency department over an eight-year period who received first a non-rectal triage temperature and then a subsequent rectal temperature. RESULTS: The mean difference in temperatures between the initial temperature and the rectal temperature was 1.3 °F (P<0.001), with 25.9% of the patients having higher rectal temperatures ≥2 °F, and 5.0% having higher rectal temperatures ≥4 °F. The mean difference among the patients who received oral, axillary, and temporal temperatures was 1.2 °F (P<0.001), 1.8 °F (P<0.001), and 1.2 °F (P<0.001) respectively. About 18.1% of the patients were initially afebrile and found to be febrile by rectal temperature, with an average difference of 2.5 °F (P<0.001). These patients had a higher rate of admission (61.4%, P<0.005), and were more likely to be admitted to the hospital for a higher level of care, such as an intensive care unit, when compared with the full cohort (12.5% vs. 5.8%, P<0.005). CONCLUSIONS: There are significant differences between rectal temperatures and non-invasive triage temperatures in this emergency department cohort. In almost one in five patients, fever was missed by triage temperature.

BACKGROUND: Traumatic brain injuries are common and costly to hospital systems. Most of the guidelines on management of traumatic brain injuries are taken from the Brain Trauma Foundation Guidelines. This is a review of the current literature discussing the evolving practice of traumatic brain injury. DATA SOURCES: A literature search using multiple databases was performed for articles published through September 2012 with concentration on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials. URESULTS: The focus of care should be to minimize secondary brain injury by surgically decompressing certain hematomas, maintain systolic blood pressure above 90 mmHg, oxygen saturations above 93%, euthermia, intracranial pressures below 20 mmHg, and cerebral perfusion pressure between 60–80 mmHg. CONCLUSION: Much is still unknown about the management of traumatic brain injury. The current practice guidelines have not yet been sufficiently validated, however equipoise is a major issue when conducting randomized control trials among patients with traumatic brain injury.