Cardiology

It is not an uncommon sight to find patients with hypertension presenting to the Emergency Department. Did you know that one in four Canadians is diagnosed with it? Chronic hypertension is also the leading cause of disability-adjusted life expectancy.
Hypertensive Emergencies
Heterogenous acute hypertensive disorders make up hypertensive emergencies. These afflictions require immediate diagnosis and treatment. Using the main guidelines used in the country, we can break down hypertensive emergencies into two groups:

Evidence of worsening or acute end-organ damage
Severe hypertension (dBP > 120-130 …

How is electrical storm managed in the emergency department?
We will discuss how the process goes for those with implantable multi-shock cardioverter-defibrillators, refractory ventricular fibrillation, and polymorphic ventricular tachycardia.
Electrical shock is the occurrence of at least three sustained ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia in a span of 24 hours. On the other hand, it is defined as three ventricular arrhythmia detections requiring ICD therapies in the same amount of time.
Kindly take note that this is not a comprehensive definition as it does not consider VT that is undetected or slower…

Are you familiar with the three acute aortic syndromes? If not, these are three diagnoses that are deemed to be on the same spectrum. They are, therefore, detected and treated in similar ways. They are the following:
Aortic dissection
This condition involves a rip on the intimal layer. Aside from that, it involves a false lumen and either retrograde or anterograde expansion. Among the three, this is the most common type that even accounts for 85-90% of all acute aortic syndromes.
Intramural hematoma
On the other hand, an intramural hematoma is caused by the vasa vasorum rupturing in the media. This …