© 2001 the Emergency Medicine Journal
Editorial
Anaphylaxis: quintessence, quarrels, and quandaries
Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia (tony_brown@health.qld.gov.au)
Keywords: anaphylaxis
Anaphylaxis is the quintessence of emergency medicine. It occurs unexpectedly often in the young and otherwise healthy,1 may progress rapidly from an innocuous presentation, is potentially fatal particularly if mistreated, has no bedside diagnostic test of value mandating pure clinical recognition, responds dramatically to treatment (adrenaline (epinephrine)), and usually allows discharge within six to eight hours in the absence of a biphasic response.2
When the Project Team of the Resuscitation Council (UK) first published their consensus guidelines on the Emergency medical treatment of anaphylactic reactions aimed exclusively at first medical responders, inexperienced in the management of this emergency,3 they drew the customary howls of dissent that seem to beset all reasonable attempts to define good medical practice in the treatment of acute anaphylaxis.4 The same happened after Fisher published his excellent paper on Treatment of acute anaphylaxis in the British Medical Journal,5 which was followed by no less than
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
