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Background: According to the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH), intramuscular hematoma without other severity criteria is not considered a major bleeding.Objectives: In a large cohort of reversed vitamin K antagonist (VKA) patients admitted to the emergency unit for muscular hematoma, we assess frequency, severity, and anticoagulation management based on whether ISTH criteria were met or not.Materials and Methods: We performed a retrospective single-center study involving patients admitted to an emergency unit for VKA-induced intramuscular hematoma whose bleeding was reversed with prothrombin complex concentrates.Results: During the study period, 631 VKA-induced bleeding events occurred in our emergency unit, of which 73 (11.6%) were intramuscular hematomas and half met ISTH criteria. The mean age was 75.5years (95% CI=72.6-78.3). Admission blood tests showed that patients with ISTH criteria had higher international normalized ratio (7.0±4.6 vs. 4.1±3.0, p=0.002) and lower hemoglobin (8.1±1.8 vs. 11.9±2.2, p<0.001) than those without. Patients with ISTH criteria were more likely to have intramuscular hematoma in the iliopsoas, gluteal, and pectoral muscles than those without. Interestingly, two-thirds of rectus sheath hematomas involved patients without ISTH criteria. However, patients with or without ISTH criteria exhibited a similar hospitalization duration and rate of re-bleeding.Conclusion: We showed that half of the patients admitted with intramuscular hematoma could not be qualified as having ISTH-criteria major bleeding. Interestingly, these patients displayed a similar hospitalization duration and rate of re-bleeding to those with ISTH-criteria major bleeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Urinary tract infections, among the leading causes of antibiotic prescriptions in adult women, are complicated by increasing antibiotic resistance. Current recommendations propose a 7 day treatment with fluoroquinolones or a 10-14 day course of third-generation cephalosporins (3GC). Our aim was to study the efficiency and tolerance of a short 7 day treatment with 3GC in uncomplicated acute pyelonephritis in women aged between 18 and 65 years.Patients and Methods: This study was an open, prospective, non-comparative, monocentric pilot study with consecutive patients. We included women between 18 and 65 years old who had been admitted to the emergency department with a diagnosis of acute pyelonephritis. The treatment consisted of 1 g of ceftriaxone injection followed by 6 days of 400 mg of cefixime per day. The primary endpoint was negative urine cultures on day 9. We opted for Fleming's multistage design for this trial. ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT01390623.Results: Thirty-seven patients were analysed. The bacteriological response consisted of negative urine cultures for all 37 patients on day 9. On day 9, 30 patients were completely asymptomatic, while 7 exhibited clinical improvement though persistence of bladder irritation or flank pain. On day 37, there were no remaining symptoms and no recurrences of urinary tract infection, as noted during the last follow-up visits.Conclusions: These results suggest that acute pyelonephritis in women could be successfully treated with a short-term course of 1 g of ceftriaxone on the first day followed by 400 mg of cefixime per day for 6 days. These positive results must be confirmed by a non-inferiority study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The aim of this study is to compare the Hestia rule vs. the simplified Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (sPESI) for triaging patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) for home treatment., Methods and Results: Normotensive patients with PE of 26 hospitals from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland were randomized to either triaging with Hestia or sPESI. They were designated for home treatment if the triaging tool was negative and if the physician-in-charge, taking into account the patient's opinion, did not consider that hospitalization was required. The main outcomes were the 30-day composite of recurrent venous thrombo-embolism, major bleeding or all-cause death (non-inferiority analysis with 2.5% absolute risk difference as margin), and the rate of patients discharged home within 24 h after randomization (NCT02811237). From January 2017 through July 2019, 1975 patients were included. In the per-protocol population, the primary outcome occurred in 3.82% (34/891) in the Hestia arm and 3.57% (32/896) in the sPESI arm (P = 0.004 for non-inferiority). In the intention-to-treat population, 38.4% of the Hestia patients (378/984) were treated at home vs. 36.6% (361/986) of the sPESI patients (P = 0.41 for superiority), with a 30-day composite outcome rate of 1.33% (5/375) and 1.11% (4/359), respectively. No recurrent or fatal PE occurred in either home treatment arm., Conclusions: For triaging PE patients, the strategy based on the Hestia rule and the strategy based on sPESI had similar safety and effectiveness. With either tool complemented by the overruling of the physician-in-charge, more than a third of patients were treated at home with a low incidence of complications., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology.)

Objective: To determine whether copeptin-us can rule out diagnosis of non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) without prolonged monitoring and serial blood sampling in patients with high-sensitive cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) below the 99th centile at presentation to the emergency department (ED) [corrected]., Design: Prospective, non-randomised, individual blinded diagnostic accuracy study., Setting: Two EDs of a rural region of France., Participants: Patients with chest pain suspected of NSTEMI with onset within the last 12 h were considered for enrollment., Interventions: Serial clinical, electrographical and biochemical investigations were performed at admission and after 2, 4, 6 and 12 h. Hs-cTnI was measured using an assay with Dimension VISTA, Siemens [corrected]. Copeptin was measured by the BRAHMS copeptin-us assay on the KRYPTOR Compact Plus system. The follow-up period was 90 days., Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures: Copeptin, troponin, myoglobin and creatine kinase values. Clinical and paraclinical events. The final diagnosis was adjudicated blinded to copeptin result., Results: During 12 months, 102 patients were analysed. Final diagnosis was NSTEMI for 7.8% (n=8), unstable angina for 3.9% (n=4), cardiac but non-coronary artery disease for 8.8% (n=9), non-cardiac chest pain for 52% (n=53) and unknown for 27.5% (n=28). There was no statistical difference for copeptin values between patients with NSTEMI and others (respectively 5.5 pmol/L IQR (3.1-7.9) and 6.5 pmol/L IQR (3.9-12.1), p=0.49). Only one patient with NSTEMI had a copeptin value above the cut-off of 95th centile at admission., Conclusions: In this study, copeptin does not add a diagnostic value at admission to ED for patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome without ST-segment elevation and with hs-cTnI below the 99th centile [corrected]., Trial Registration Number: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01334645.