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Simple Blood Test To Detect Mild Brain Injury?

Via USAToday.com:

FREDERICK, Md. — The Army says it has discovered a simple blood test that can diagnose mild traumatic brain damage [TBI] or concussion, a hard-to-detect injury that can affect young athletes, infants with “shaken baby syndrome” and combat troops.

“This is huge,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.

Yes, it is, if it pans out. There’s so little actual information in this that it’s hard to get excited about it, but let’s say they’ve isolated a “brain injury” protein.

First, it would have uses outside traumatic brain injury (TBI), though that in and of itself might be useful. I don’t want to poo-pooh this test for TBI, but there are already rules for returning to contact sports (and combat has to be the ultimate in contact activities), so what’s the purpose here? (I forsee more Purple Hearts, which is fine.)

Stroke? TIA? Seizure? Pseudotumor cerebri, as a strain indicator? What if this is the test that allows us to diagnose meningitis without doing lumbar punctures? I’m all in on that front. Let’s hope this pans out, for all our sakes.

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Blood Tests Save Lives If You Know What To Look For

To be a great internist you have to be great at blood gas interpretation. And you have to be able to do it quickly and efficiently. You have to understand what all the numbers mean and you have to get a good clinical sense of how to interpret them and how to change management based on their result. And you have to be able to do it without pulling out your formula books. In six years as a hospitalist I have never calculated what the compensatory responses should be. I just know.

Sometimes blood gases change your management or your medical opinion on what’s happening. Take for example my patient with advanced MS. She presented through the emergency department with “oropharyngeal bleeding of unclear etiology”. Her original BMP:

Na 137
K 4.0
CL 99
HCO3 36
BUN 35
CR 1.0
Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*

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