Emergency Medical Minute3 Heinä 2023

Podcast 858: Whole Blood Pregnancy Test

Contributor: Meghan Hurley MD

Educational Pearls:

What do you do if you need a stat pregnancy test on an incapacitated patient?

You can send a serum quantitative human chorionic gonadotropin (beta-HCG), but that might take a while for the lab to process.
Another option is to place a drop of whole blood on a urine pregnancy immunoassay.

These tests are already verified for urine and serum.
2012 study showed that whole blood was 95.8% sensitive for pregnancy compared to 95.3% for urine.
Takes a little bit longer (10 minutes was used in the study) due to the viscosity of blood.
Word of caution: This study only looked at a single urine pregnancy kit type. It is possible that other kits would have a different efficacy.

There are new finger stick tests coming out for capillary blood.
Anecdotally, Dr. Hurley was able to use this technique to support a diagnosis of ruptured ectopic pregnancy in a patient that needed emergent surgery.

References

Fromm C, Likourezos A, Haines L, Khan AN, Williams J, Berezow J. Substituting whole blood for urine in a bedside pregnancy test. J Emerg Med. 2012 Sep;43(3):478-82. doi: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2011.05.028. Epub 2011 Aug 27. PMID: 21875776.
Sowder AM, Yarbrough ML, Nerenz RD, Mitsios JV, Mortensen R, Gronowski AM, Grenache DG. Analytical performance evaluation of the i-STAT Total β-human chorionic gonadotropin immunoassay. Clin Chim Acta. 2015 Jun 15;446:165-70. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2015.04.025. Epub 2015 Apr 25. PMID: 25916696.

Summarized by Jeffrey Olson, MS1 | Edited by Meg Joyce & Jorge Chalit, OMSII

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(1166)

Podcast 1011: Creepy Crawlies

Contributor: Meghan Hurley, MD Educational Pearls: What animal is the most lethal to humans? Depending on how we define lethal, and animal, this answer is actually not straight forward. Globall...

6 Heinä 7min

Podcast 1010: First Pass Intubation Success

Contributor: Travis Barlock, MD Educational Pearls: First-pass success is critical to limit complications from apnea, hypoxia, and airway trauma. Complication rate for patients intubated on the f...

29 Kesä 3min

On the Streets- Zero to Rodeo

Dan Orbidan, OMS-II and Dr. Travis Barlock, MD discuss a real out of hospital call. This episode covers the implications of a pharmacologically abnormal patient presentation and the pre and post hospi...

22 Kesä 35min

Carepoint Journal Club- Neurology

Carepoint Journal Club is a quarterly series with discussions about a medical topic, brought to you by Carepoint's Emergency Physicians.

15 Kesä 36min

Podcast 1009: Prevention for Recurrent UTI

Contributor: Aaron Lessen, MD Educational Pearls: UTIs are commonly seen in older women We often see them taking long-term prophylactic antibiotics because of common recurrence. Around 20-30% of...

8 Kesä 1min

Podcast 1008: Acupuncture for Low Back Pain in Older Adults

Contributor: Aaron Lessen, MD Educational Pearls: Back pain is a common presenting complaint in the emergency department. Challenges arise when tailoring care to elderly populations using standar...

1 Kesä 2min

Podcast 1007: Caffeine Pharmacology

Contributor: Travis Barlock, MD Educational Pearls: Caffeine Geography and Types: Caffeine is found throughout the world and has evolved independently in various plants that are not evolutionarily...

25 Touko 4min

Podcast 1006: Cannabinoid Pharmacology

Contributor: Travis Barlock, MD Educational Pearls: Endocannabinoid System: THC binds CB1 and CB2 receptors in neurons and immune cells Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive compo...

18 Touko 5min