BACKGROUND Patient-controlled analgesia is associated with potentially fatal opioid-related respiratory depression. Opioids are a well-recognized cause of respiratory depression. However, in the postoperative patient, unrecognized pulmonary disease may lead to retention of carbon dioxide, which is further antagonized by opioids and may lead to life-threatening respiratory depression. Therefore,...

STUDY OBJECTIVE Multiple studies have evaluated capnography for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism; accordingly, we conduct a meta-analysis of these trials. METHODS We performed a systematic search from 1990 to 2011, using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library, including studies evaluating capnography as a diagnostic tool alone or in conjunction with other tests. After study quality eval...

BACKGROUND Capnography provides a continuous, non-invasive monitoring of the CO2 to assess adequacy of ventilation and provide added safety features in mechanically ventilated patients by allowing for quick identification of unplanned extubation. These monitors may allow for decreased utilization of blood gases. The objective was to determine if implementation of continuous capnography monitori...

BACKGROUND Intermittent measurement of respiratory rate via observation is routine in many patient care settings. This approach has several inherent limitations that diminish the clinical utility of these measurements because it is intermittent, susceptible to human error, and requires clinical resources. As an alternative, a software application that derives continuous respiratory rate measure...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this prospective study in the prehospital setting was to compare three different methods for immediate confirmation of tube placement into the trachea in patients with severe head injury: auscultation, capnometry, and capnography. METHODS All adult patients (>18 years) with severe head injury, maxillofacial injury with need of protection of airway, or polytrauma were int...

introduction: capnography, is an easy, fast and practical method which its application in the diagnosis of pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (pte) has recently been studied. this study aimed to assess the diagnostic value of end-tidal co2 (etco2) and the alveolar dead space (avds) in the diagnosis of patients suspected to pte who have been referred to the emergency department. materials and metho...

BACKGROUND Procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) is used frequently in the emergency department (ED) to facilitate painful procedures and interventions. Capnography, a monitoring modality widely used in operating room and endoscopy suite settings, is being used more frequently in the ED setting with the goal of reducing cardiopulmonary adverse events. As opposed to settings outside the ED, th...