PURPOSE: The bedside lung ultrasound in emergency (BLUE) protocol is an excellent diagnostic tool for acute respiratory failures requiring admission to the intensive care unit. We incorporated cardiac ultrasound in the BLUE algorithm because cardiac origin is also necessary to examine in an emergency setting. We studied the usefulness of the emergency department (ED)-BLUE protocol for patients complaining of dyspnea in an emergency department. METHODS: At first, we assessed lung sliding, artifacts (Alines and B-lines), alveolar consolidation and pleural effusion on stage I and II evaluation. Then, we checked heart to detect 3Es (Effusion, Equality, and Ejection fractions). We divided all the possible conditions into 10 categories. We compared it with final diagnosis and examined the agreements using kappa statistics. We compared the physician's level of confidence for the first impression. The 10 categories were: 1) normal or inconclusive, 2) pulmonary embolism, 3) airway disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma), 4) pneumothorax, 5) large pleural effusion, 6) alveolar consolidation, 7) acute pulmonary edema due to systolic congestive heart failure, 8) acute respiratory distress syndrome, 9) chronic interstitial lung disease with exacerbation, and 10) pericardial effusion with/without tamponade. RESULTS: This prospective study was performed for 172 patients over 18-years-of-age with dyspnea during a 25-month period. Kappa value between the diagnosis after ED-BLUE and final diagnosis was 0.812(p<0.001). The mean of physician's full term for LOC for the first impression before and after ED-BLUE was 3.09+/-0.83 and 4.36+/-0.70 (paired t-test, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: ED-BLUE protocol could help the emergency physician make an accurate diagnosis in patients with dyspnea in the emergent setting.
Artifacts ; Dyspnea ; Emergencies ; Heart ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units ; Lung ; Lung Diseases, Interstitial ; Lung Diseases, Obstructive ; Pericardial Effusion ; Pleural Effusion ; Pneumothorax ; Prospective Studies ; Pulmonary Edema ; Pulmonary Embolism ; Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Adult

PURPOSE: Controversy exists over the preoperative risk factors for postoperative urinary retention after the midurethral sling procedure for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). We intended to analyze the effect of preoperative flow rate on postoperative urinary retention after the transobturator tape (TOT) operation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 322 patients who underwent TOT from June 2006 to May 2012 were included in this retrospective study. All patients were preoperatively investigated for urinary symptoms and underwent preoperative urodynamic studies including urine flow rate. Postoperative urinary retention, voiding difficulty, and uroflowmetry were checked. Urinary retention was defined as the need for additional catheterization longer than 1 day. Patients were divided by preoperative peak flow rate (Qmax) of 15 mL/s (low Qmax group and normal Qmax group). RESULTS: There were 3 cases of postoperative urinary retention (0.9%) and 52 cases of voiding difficulty (16.1%). The low Qmax group included 40 patients (12.4%) and the normal Qmax group included 282 patients (87.5%). Between the two groups, there were no significant differences in age, previous pelvic surgery history, or past medical history. The low Qmax group had higher scores for voided volume and detrusor pressure at Qmax. However, there was no significant difference in postoperative voiding difficulty between the two groups. Furthermore, three patients who experienced postoperative retention showed high flow rates preoperatively. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that voiding difficulty in the group with low preoperative flow was tolerable and the treatment success rate was comparable to that in patients in the normal flow group. According to our analysis, patients with a low flow rate preoperatively can be safely treated with TOT for SUI.
Catheterization ; Catheters ; Humans ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Suburethral Slings* ; Urinary Incontinence ; Urinary Incontinence, Stress ; Urinary Retention ; Urodynamics