Year in review 2013: Critical Care – out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, traumatic injury, and other emergency care conditions

In this review, we discuss articles published in 2013 contributing to the existing literature on the management of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and the evaluation and management of several other emergency conditions, including traumatic injury. The utility of intravenous medications, including epinephrine and amiodarone, in the management of cardiac arrest is questioned, as are cardiac arrest termination-of-resuscitation rules. Articles discussing mode of transportation in trauma are evaluated, and novel strategies for outcome prediction in traumatic injury are proposed. Diagnostic strategies, including computerized tomography scan for the diagnosis of smoke inhalation injury and serum biomarkers for the diagnosis of post-cardiac arrest syndrome and acute aortic dissection, are also explored. Although many of the articles discussed raise more questions than they answer, they nevertheless provide ample opportunity for further investigation.