Essentials 1 Influenza is infectious before symptoms appear. 2 Pneumonia and exacerbation of underlying chronic disease are the most common complications of influenza. 3 The sensitivity and specificity of clinical signs is poor. Testing by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is…
Essentials 1 Asthma is a major health problem worldwide, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. 2 Asthma is characterized by episodic bronchoconstriction and wheeze in response to a variety of stimuli. 3 Features suggesting an increased risk of life-threatening asthma…
Essentials 1 Management of the airway, breathing and circulation (ABCs) takes precedence over the history, examination and specific treatment of upper airway obstruction. 2 Direct laryngoscopy can be an important technique for both the investigation and management of upper airway…
Essentials 1 Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) generally expand slowly and are asymptomatic. 2 Screening programs aim to detect their presence prior to rupture and promote early elective repair once their size is ≥5.5 cm. 3 Abdominal pain/back pain with hypotension…
Essentials 1 Untreated aortic dissection has a mortality rate of approximately 1% per hour for the first 48 hours and 90% at 3 months. Early diagnosis and aggressive management improve mortality rates to 20% to 40%. 2 Aortic dissection is…
Essentials 1 Hypertension is defined as a systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg and/or a diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mm Hg. 2 Hypertensive crises include both hypertensive emergencies and hypertensive urgencies. 3 A hypertensive emergency is characterized by end-organ damage…
Essentials 1 With the continuing rise in the elderly population, the incidence of peripheral arterial and venous disease in the developed world continues to increase significantly. 2 Claudication is the most important symptom of arterial disease in an extremity, although…
Essentials 1 Infective endocarditis is effectively a multiorgan disease and is an often missed diagnosis. 2 There has been a shift in the predominant organism in infective endocarditis from Streptococcus viridans to Staphylococcus aureus , and nosocomial infections are becoming…
Pericarditis Essentials 1 Myocarditis is often associated with pericarditis. This has important clinical implications. 2 Pericarditis is diagnosed based on history and findings on both electrocardiography (ECG), and echocardiography. The diagnosis is based on two of the four criteria outlined…
Essentials 1 Venous thromboembolism (VTE) has protean clinical manifestations and is a continuum from deep venous thrombosis (DVT) to the main life-threatening complication of pulmonary embolism (PE). 2 Left untreated, patients with a diagnosis of PE have a significant recurrence…