Month: October 2017

The Best Antibiotic Stewardship Money Can Buy

Believe it, or not:

Use of procalcitonin to guide antibiotic treatment in patients with acute respiratory infections reduces antibiotic exposure and side-effects, and improves survival. Widespread implementation of procalcitonin protocols in patients with acute respiratory infections thus has the potential to improve antibiotic management with positive effects on clinical outcomes and on the current threat of increasing antibiotic multiresistance.

So, should we all be jumping on the procalcitonin bandwagon? Chances are, you probably already have – check with your critical care team, and I expect you’ll find some implementation of a procalcitonin-based protocol supporting antibiotic stewardship. The underlying concept is hardly unreasonable – when sensitive markers of bacterial infection are low, antibiotics can be discontinued.

However, the evidence base – as helpfully pooled in this individual-patient meta-analysis – is nothing more than a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign by the manufacturers of these assays. Roche, Thermo-Fisher and bioMérieux have an obvious vested business interest in publishing favorable research findings in support of procalcitonin-based treatment algorithms, and it should come as no surprise the authors have a couple items to declare:

PS, MC-C, and BM have received support from Thermo-Fisher and bioMérieux to attend meetings and fulfilled speaking engagements. BM has served as a consultant for and received research support from Thermo-Fisher. HCB and MB have received research support from Thermo-Fisher for a previous meta-analysis regarding procalcitonin. DWdL’s hospital received financial support for the randomisation tool by ThermoFisher. DS, OB, and MT have received research support from Thermo-Fisher. TW and SS have received lecture fees and research support from Thermo-Fisher. CEL has received lecture fees from Brahms and Merck Sharp & Dohme-Chibret. JC has received consulting and lecture fees from P zer, Brahms, Wyeth, Johnson & Johnson, Nektar-Bayer, and Arpida. MW has received consulting and lectures fees from Merck Sharp & Dohme-Chibret, Janssen Cilag, Gilead, Astellas, Sano , and Thermo-Fisher. FT’s institution received funds from Brahms. CC has received an unrestricted grant of €2000 from Thermo-Fisher Scientific, and non-fiancial support from bioMérieux for the ProToCOLD study. YS has received unrestricted research grants from Thermo-Fisher, bioMérieux, Orion Pharma, and Pfizer. ARF has served on advisory boards for Novavax, Hologic, Gilead, and MedImmune; and has received research funding from AstraZeneca, Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, and ADMA Biologics. J-USJ declares that he was invited to the European Respiratory Society meeting 2016 by Roche Pharmaceuticals.

And, it’s clearly no coincidence most of the 26 trials included in this systematic review are authored by those same financially-supported authors above – so, it’s turtles all the way down for this meta-analysis.

The results, then, for what they’re worth, despite all the concerted effort to spin them, are rather bland. The mortality differences are zero in the outpatient settings, and small enough in the intensive care unit side to potentially be skewed by design. The only signal I might ascribe reliable in these data is: procalcitonin does reduce antibiotic exposures. This manifests in practice in two different fashions, depending on the setting. In the outpatient setting, where virtually all the antibiotics are unnecessary (one of these trials enrolled patients with “bronchitis”!), it gives the clinicians a crutch to fall back upon to prevent them from practicing bad medicine.  In the intensive care unit, it helps titrate the use of broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics, which is likely to reduce a number of important downstream effects.  I don’t object to the latter application, but my recommendation for the former: just don’t practice bad medicine in the first place (easier said than done, sadly).

So, the takeaway I’d like to promote in the context of this article – and its simultaneously published Cochrane Review by the same, COI-infested authors – is skepticism regarding the effect sizes for procalcitonin-guided therapy. These data do not exclude its clinical utility for the stated purposes, but its use ought be considered in the narrowest of clinical situations, and probably in those at the highest-risk for harms from otherwise clinically confounded antibiotic exposures.

“Effect of procalcitonin-guided antibiotic treatment on mortality in acute respiratory infections: a patient level meta-analysis”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29037960

Also, if you’re persistent enough to scroll to page 126 in the Cochrane Review full text, you glean this lovely pearl:
Philipp Schuetz received support (paid to his employer) from Thermo Fisher, Roche Diagnostics, Abbott and bioMerieux to attend meetings and fulfil speaking engagements. These conflicts breach Cochrane’s Commercial Sponsorship Policy (Clause 3), therefore Philipp Schuetz will step down as lead author at the next update of the review. Dr Schuetz’s declared conflicts were referred to the Funding Arbiter Panel and Cochrane’s Deputy Editor-in-Chief who have agreed this course of action but as an exception which does not set a precedent for similar situations in the future.

Don’t Dilaudid for Headaches

What’s the most common Emergency Department treatment for “migraine” in U.S. Emergency Departments? If you guessed one of our respected go-to medications – metoclopramide, prochlorperazine, ketorolac, or such ilk – you’re be wrong. It’s friggin’ hydromorphone (Dilaudid). Ask for it by name. It starts with a “D”, and your doctor will know what you’re talking about.

For what it’s worth (hopefully), these data are out of date – coming from the 2010 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey in an article published in 2014.  In their report, over half of patients treated for headache in the Emergency Department received opiate therapy, and hydromorphone led the pack. But, if hydromorphone is so widely used, are the rest of us responsible adults missing something?

No.

This is a randomized, double-blind trial in which patients with migraneous headache in the Emergency Department were treated with either hydromorphone or prochlorperazine intravenously. The dose for hydromorphone was 1mg and the prochlorperazine 10mg, with those receiving prochlorperazine concurrently given diphenhydramine 25mg. The primary outcome was headache relief at 2 hours, as measured by patient reported symptoms and by any use of rescue medications, and patients could receive a second dose of the active study medication at the 1 hour mark.

These authors enrolled 127 patients, and at one hour, 15% of the prochlorperazine cohort still had severe or moderate headache, while 48% of the hydromorphone cohort reported the same. Similar absolute magnitudes of patients in the hydromorphone cohort requested a second dose of medication or required use of an off-protocol rescue medication. Then, the study was stopped – they expected to enroll 208, but a pre-planned analysis after 120 required the study be terminated with respect to the observed treatment difference.

And, that’s what I’d suggest be done in this case to hydromorphone use for headache – terminated. I hope the next time a report is published regarding the medications used for acute headache in the Emergency Department, hydromorphone has virtually disappeared from the list.

“Randomized study of IV prochlorperazine plus diphenhydramine vs IV hydromorphone for migraine”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29046364

The Top “Overuse” of 2016

Another entry in JAMA Internal Medicine’s lovely “Less is More” series, this is a “systematic review” of the previous year’s literature regarding potentially unnecessary care. Living here in the asylum, it seems all our fellow inmates and I are consigned to issuing weather reports from the tempest – but, hey, baby steps.

Their “systematic review” is not particularly rigorous.  It’s basically a literature search, followed by a subjective distillation by author consensus to those considered to be the most potentially impactful – but, regardless, their list is worth reviewing. Without further ado, the highlights of their ten selections:

  • Transesophageal echocardiography is more informative than transthoracic in illuminating the etiology of a stroke, but the additive information does not have a clear downstream benefit on outcomes.
  • Patients undergoing computed tomography to rule out pulmonary embolism without algorithm-compliant use of D-dimer suffer from overuse and low-value testing.
  • CT use increased in all Emergency Department patients with respiratory symptoms, with no evidence of downstream change in prescribing, hospital admission, or mortality.
  • Supplemental oxygen does not demonstrate benefit in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mild exertional hypoxia.
  • Small improvements in antibiotic prescribing were seen when comparisons to peers were performed.
  • A shared decision-making implementation for Emergency Department patients with chest pain increased patient engagement and demonstrated a secondary effect of diminished admission and cardiac testing.

Wizard.

“2017 Update on Medical Overuse: A Systematic Review”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28973402

Morphine Not a Good Adjunct For Pediatric Pain

Treating acute musculoskeletal pain in the Emergency Department is a common occurrence – and even on the docket as a time-to-analgesia quality measure. Where we frequently see failures and delays, however, are in children, with much written regarding oligoanalgesia and the dragging of feet before any sort of pain management. Furthermore, adults are frequently managed with opiate therapy, which, despite its various pitfalls, may be considered to stand above the commonly used ibuprofen and acetaminophen monotherapy in children.

So, does it work better to combine an oral non-steroidal analgesic with opiate therapy in children? Or, perhaps, is even an opiate alone better with regard to adverse effects? That is the question asked by this three-arm, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized trial. Children with painful musculoskeletal injuries were randomized either ti 10mg/kg oral ibuprofen, 0.2mg/kg oral morphine, or the combination of both.

The winner is: not children. With 91 analyzed in the ibuprofen-only arm, 188 in the morphine-only arm, and 177 in the combination arm, there were no reliable differences between analgesia between groups. More disappointingly, the average pain score on the visual analogue scale was ~60mm across all groups, and no group improved more than 20mm within an hour. The authors considered a VAS score of <30mm at 60 minutes to represent adequate pain control, and less than a third from each group achieved this. There were no serious adverse events in any group, but 20% of those receiving morphine complained of mild adverse events, mostly nausea and abdominal pain, compared with 7% of the ibuprofen-only arm.

So, still at square one for oral analgesia – but, at least, this negative trial helps inform our avoidance of the intervention tested here.

“Oral Analgesics Utilization for Children With Musculoskeletal Injury (OUCH Trial): An RCT”
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2017/10/09/peds.2017-0186

Alas, Abscesses [heart] Antibiotics

“Fake news!” All you need for effective treatment for abscesses is an incision and drainage procedure – adjunctive antibiotics are just unnecessary exposures with only marginal benefit, at best.

Then, unfortunately, two trials have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing benefit for antibiotics – either trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole or clindamycin – improve the rate of clinical cure. The magnitude of benefit was somewhere in the range of a number needed to treat between 7 and 14, with infrequent harms, suggesting the balance of benefit may favor antibiotics. However, the abscesses included in these study tended to be large, suggesting perhaps these results weren’t easily generalizable.

This is a subgroup analysis of one of these two studies, trying to dredge out a specific population for whom antibiotics weren’t actually of value. And, unfortunately, for the purists among us, the results are bleak. Accounting for the diminishing statistical power and reliability of such an analysis, there are few useful signals within these data. Neither the size of the abscess nor the area of surrounding erythema reliably predicted diminishing returns from adjunctive antibiotics, nor did presence of fever or comorbid illness. The only probably reliable signal in these data, consistent with results in the era prior to MRSA, shows antibiotics are probably unnecessary for those who are not infected with staphylococci. Unfortunately, until that point where the causative agent can be easily ascertained at the time of I&D procedure, these data aren’t terribly useful in a practical sense.

So, the benefit is not universal, but it’s nothing at which to scoff. Perhaps a delayed antibiotic strategy could be considered, but, it seems most patients ought be offered antibiotics following drainage of a clinically significant abscess.

“Subgroup Analysis of Antibiotic Treatment for Skin Abscesses”
http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(17)31383-5/abstract

CT (Almost) Never Before LP

The guidelines describing the patients with suspected bacterial meningitis for whom neuroimaging is indicated prior to lumbar puncture are quite broad. The Infectious Disease Society of America includes virtually every imaginable mental status or immune system impairment, and guidelines in Europe are similar. The anachronistic concern: cerebral herniation in the setting of increased intracranial pressure leading to an otherwise potentially avoidable death. But, guidelines in Sweden are different. In Sweden, their neuroimaging guidelines suggest only those virtually comatose or with focal neurologic signs should undergo CT prior to LP.

In this review of patients with acute bacterial meningitis from a Swedish registry, the authors attempt to parse out whether a decision to perform CT is not only unnecessary – but also potentially harmful. They analyze 815 patients ultimately diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and stratify them by those who received LP without CT, LP before CT, and CT before LP. Presenting features and comorbid medical conditions were abstracted retrospectively, and the results were analyzed with respect to the varying guideline recommendations, mortality, and functional outcomes.

The clear winner: CT rarely before LP, as in Sweden. By their guidelines, only ~7% of those ultimately diagnosed with bacterial meningitis had indication for CT prior to LP – but, unfortunately, 52% of patients underwent imaging anyway. The reason for “winning” if adherent to the Swedish strategy, however, was not just reduced resource utilization – it was mortality and functional outcomes. Mortality was almost halved in those for whom Swedish guidelines were followed, only rarely CT prior to LP. The authors attribute the signals for the underlying mortality difference to a greater percentage of patients receiving antibiotics within 1 hour or 2 hours when no CT was performed.

This probably overstates the magnitude of harm relating to CT use, as delays in antibiotics are probably more accurately delays in diagnosis, rather than logistics impacting timely delivery of antibiotics. After all, even in those with LP prior to CT, only 41% received steroids plus adequate antibiotics, so I expect the magnitude of effect seen here likely ties more reliably to confounding individual patient factors not easily adjusted for in a retrospective analysis.

That said, I do think the Swedes are doing the right thing – the vast majority of CTs were unhelpful. Their guidelines for neuroimaging – deep coma and/or lateralizing neurologic signs – will probably pick up any relevant findings (like the subdural empyema in this series), and reduce waste while obviating any possible delays in care.

“Lumbar puncture performed promptly or after neuroimaging in adult bacterial meningitis: A prospective national cohort study evaluating different guidelines”
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cid/cix806/4110207/Lumbar-puncture-performed-promptly-or-after

Are We Killing People With 30-Day Readmission Targets?

Ever since the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced their intention to penalize hospitals for early readmissions, folks have been worrying about the obvious consequences: would a focus on avoidance place patients at risk? Would patients best served in the hospital be pushed into other settings for suboptimal care?

That is the argument made in this short piece in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They look backwards at the last two decades of heart failure readmissions and short-term mortality, and take issue with the fundamental underlying premise of the quality measure, the inequities associated with the measure, and potential unintended harms. Their most illustrative example: when patients die outside the hospital within 30-days, paradoxically, they contribute to apparent improved performance in healthcare quality, as measured by 30-day readmission.

They back up their point by using the aggregate data analyzing readmissions between 2008 and 2014, published previously in JAMA, and focusing primarily on the heart failure component. In the original JAMA analysis, the evaluation paired individual hospital monthly readmission and risk-adjusted mortality, and were unable to identify an increased risk of death relating to reductions in 30-day readmissions. These authors say: too much tree, not enough forest. In the decade prior to announcements of 30-day readmission penalties, 30-day heart failure mortality had dropped 16.2%, but over the analysis period, 30-day heart failure mortality was back on the rise. In 2008 the 30-day mortality was 7.9% and by 2014 it was up to 9.2%, a 16.5% increase, and an even larger increase relative to the pre-study trend with decreasing mortality.

These are obviously two very different ways of looking at the same data, but the implication is fair: those charged with developing a quality measure should be able to conclusively demonstrate its effectiveness and safety. If any method of analysis raises concerns regarding the accepted balance of value and harm, the measure should be placed on a probationary status while rigorous re-evaluation proceeds.

“The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program Is Associated With Fewer Readmissions, More Deaths”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109717393610

The Lifespan of the Torsed Testicle

Depriving an organ of its blood supply is invariably fatal in the local context. And, just as supposedly “time is brain”, “time is testicle” in the case of torsion. But, while we have our various time-based targets and thresholds for the acute treatment of cerebral ischemia, how long ought we be urgently concerned about the potential for testicle salvage after the onset of symptoms?

These authors undertook a systematic review of case series reports of testicular salvage following torsion, stratified by time of symptom onset. The quality of their evidence is, admittedly, low, and subject to the flaws of retrospective series and publication bias. That said, however, they identified a cumulative accounting of outcomes for 2,114 patients undergoing surgical exploration for potential salvage.

Earlier is, obviously, better. It is reasonable to estimate the likelihood of finding a salvageable testicle at ~95% if symptoms have been present for six hours or fewer. As time ticks by, rates of salvage decreased: ~77% between 6-12 hours, ~50% in the 13-24 hour timeframe, and, finally, ~25% and below in smaller samples beyond 24 hours. Even though these rates of salvage are lower, they remain substantial, and certainly beyond the traditional 6-8 hour viability teaching.

The authors do not have a conclusive unifying hypothesis as to why many cases were still salvageable despite extended time windows, but simply use these weak data to suggest timely evaluation and consultation remains important even beyond acute symptom onset.

“A Systematic Review of Testicle Survival Time After a Torsion Event”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28953100

Take Large-Vessel Strokes Directly to Endovascular Centers

This isn’t exactly “news” – or it shouldn’t be – because the basic underlying hypotheses for care in cerebral ischemia are: 1) identify or assume viable brain tissue, and 2) effectively reperfuse said tissue. So, of course, delays in 2 will lead to reductions in remaining viable 1 – the so-called “time is brain”.

This is a review of a mechanical thrombectomy registry, STRATIS, set up mostly just to record outcomes and usage in the “real world”. Registries are great for retrospective analysis fraught with bias, but, if high-quality evidence were cheap and easy to come by, we would have that instead. These authors performed an analysis associating onset-to-revascularization times with outcomes, stratifying their analysis by direct presentation to an endovascular center versus those requiring intra-hospital transfer. Unsurprisingly, onset-to-revascularization times are longer in those who presented to an outside facility prior to transfer. Unadjusted functional outcomes favored those with direct presentation (mRS 0-2 in 60.0% vs 52.2%), with no change in mortality. Statistical analysis of the impact of receiving tPA did not demonstrate any effect on outcomes.

So, yes, patients should be triaged in the field as best as possible to detect a large vessel stroke possibly amenable to intervention, and transported directly to capable centers. The only apparent negative impact is a delay to tPA, but the entire existence of the endovascular industry is predicated on the fact tPA just doesn’t work for large vessel strokes – the reperfusion rate is probably <10%, and it probably leads to increased post-procedural hemorrhage. There is essentially no value to stopping at the closest hospital just to give tPA when definitive therapy is delayed by, as these authors modeled, up to an hour and a half. The collateral circulation does usually give out eventually, so, while the magnitude of time-based treatment effect from this retrospective analysis isn’t reliable, it probably reflects some underlying truths – and stopping anywhere sooner is just a waste.

“Interhospital Transfer Prior to Thrombectomy is Associated with Delayed Treatment and Worse Outcome in the STRATIS Registry”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28943516