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Acute Internal Medicine Series: Management of Oncological Emergencies | Dr Sachini Malaviarachchi

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Summary

This on-demand teaching session is tailored specifically to medical professionals for the management of oncological emergencies. It will cover topics such as spinal cord compression, raised intracranial pressure, obstruction, thoracic blood syndrome, hyperviscosity syndrome, tumour lysis syndrome, malignant hypercalcemia, inappropriate ADH secretion, and neutropenic sepsis. Through clinical discussion and critical thinking, participants will strengthen their memory, retrieval abilities, and clinical abilities in managing oncological emergencies to provide optimal care to patients.

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Description

Sachini Malaviarachchi

Designation: Consultant Clinical Oncologist

Affiliation: University Hospital Plymouth NHS Trust

Overview:

  1. Spinal cord compression, Corda equina syndrome
  2. SVC obstruction
  3. Hyperviscosity syndrome
  4. Tumour lysis syndrome
  5. Malignant Hypercalcemia
  6. Neutropenic sepsis

Spinal Cord Compression:

Treatment:

  • Steroids: To reduce inflammation and swelling around the spine.
  • Positioning: Ensure the patient is in a comfortable position to alleviate pressure.
  • Pain Management: Administration of analgesics and other medications.
  • Radiotherapy: Targeted radiation to reduce the size of the tumor causing compression.
  • Surgery: Directly remove or reduce the tumor or decompress the spinal cord.
  • Bisphosphonates: Helps in strengthening the bone structure.
  • Targeted Therapy: Use of specific agents targeting tumor cells.
  • Injecting Bone Cement into the Spine: Stabilizes fractured vertebral bodies.
  • Definitive Chemotherapy, Hormonal Therapy: Systemic treatments targeting tumor growth.

Associated Complications:

  • Thrombosis
  • Pressure sores
  • Pneumonia
  • Bladder & bowel problems

SVC Obstruction:

Management of SVC Syndrome:

  • ABCDE: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure - basic life support measures.
  • Steroids: Reduce inflammation.
  • Radiotherapy: Reduce tumor size causing obstruction.
  • Chemotherapy: Systemic treatment targeting the tumor.
  • Thrombolysis: Dissolve blood clots.
  • Stent Placement: Open up the blocked vein.
  • Hydration: Ensure adequate fluid intake.
  • Early Apheresis: Removal of blood components.
  • Phlebotomy: Removal of blood to decrease its volume.
  • Specific Standard Therapy: Depending on the type and location of tumor.

Tumour Lysis Syndrome:

A rapid release of cellular contents can lead to:

  • Hyperuricemia: Excess uric acid
  • Hyperkalemia: Excess potassium
  • Hyperphosphatemia: Excess phosphate
  • Hypocalcemia: Low calcium

Management:

  • Correction of Electrolyte Abnormalities: Using appropriate medications.
  • Vigorous Hydration: Urine output of 100cc/hr to promote excretion of waste products.
  • Rasburicase 6 mg: Enzyme to breakdown uric acid.
  • Dialysis: If severe, to filter waste products from blood.

Malignant Hypercalcemia:

  • Hydration: To help excrete calcium.
  • Bisphosphonates: Reduce bone resorption.
  • Steroids: Reduce vitamin D production and calcium release from bones.

Neutropenic Sepsis:

Neutropenic sepsis is a serious condition where a patient with a reduced number of white blood cells becomes infected. Immediate hospitalization and treatment with intravenous antibiotics is usually required.

Summary:

Oncological emergencies demand prompt identification and immediate management to reduce morbidity and mortality. A multidisciplinary approach is vital for effective management. Proper awareness and timely interventions can substantially improve patient outcomes.

Learning objectives

Learning Objectives for the Teaching Session:

  1. At the end of the session, participants should be able to identify clinical symptoms of a spinal cord compression.
  2. By the end of the session, participants should be able to explain the role of MRI investigations and steroids in managing spinal cord compression.
  3. Participants should be able to name and describe budding treatments for malignancies.
  4. At the end of the session, participants should be able to recall the role of radiotherapy in managing spinal cord compression.
  5. By the end of the session, participants should be able to list and describe complications related to spinal cord compression and how to recognize and manage them.
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Computer generated transcript

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The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

Ok. Hello everyone. Um My name is Ria. I work for me support team. Um I'm a penultimate year medical student at Imperial and it gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker for the management of oncological emergencies. So it's Doctor Sey Malai. She is a consultant clinical oncologist and has been for almost 10 years and she's also a lecturer at Plymouth University. Um So I'm very glad to introduce her. Um And I'd like to encourage you all to please ask questions where possible. She's very lovely and quite happy to answer any questions. So please take it away. Thank you, Lea. Good morning, everyone. Um Those who join this part of the world and good afternoon for those who join from the eastern part of the world. And it's um talking about oncological emergencies where, which is an most important topic because I understand as health professionals when you do your on calls, when you work at acute emergency section or critical care units, either if it's in surgical or medical region, almost, you may come across more than 50% percent of the emergencies related to oncology or related complications. So, what we are going to discuss within the next 30 to 40 minutes is um all the common oncological emergencies including spinal cord compression corner syndrome. And maybe you rest intracranial pressure or come to a similar group. And then we c obstruction or thoracic blood syndrome and then hyperviscosity syndrome, unrelated other hematological malignancy complications, tumo lysis syndrome, malignant hypercalcemia or um in inappropriate ADH secretion and neutropenic sepsis. So, what I will do um after each and every section, I will make this as a discussion. As I understand. When you work in an emergency setting, you may have a lot of other questions because we are covering such a broad topic within 42 60 minutes. I encourage you to ask questions. You can switch on your mute, unmute your microphone and switch on your video and ask questions. So from one topic to the other, we'll have a small session of questions and answers that way you will be able to absorb most of the important um aspects of each topic. And again, I advice you to like concentrate mostly about this topic rather than getting notes because this will be recorded and you will have the lecture to um listen again. So I want you all to think while I'm talking and try and recall your experience regarding same topics so that it will be very interactive. And most importantly, when you do your post graduates and when it comes to exit exams and assessments, these um discussions will be very important as our memory. The routine and retrieval abilities is high when you interact and when you actively participate. So I encourage you to ask questions after each topic when the time is given. So um as you can see in the um slide, I want you to pick up cold compression. What's the location, try and think of? So it's cervical spine 23456. So at the level of cervical 56, there's an obvious cord compression. And in this setting, you can see it's the T 12. So how do you recognize? Because if, if you are in a remote setting where you don't have facility to do MRI even x-ray lateral spinal view, you can count upwards or downwards where you can easily recognize as you can see, this is S 1 L5. So count upwards and this is T 12 and this is uh an obvious spinal cord compression at the level of Corinna, right? So then uh try and recall how would they present when you are in an emergency setting or acute admission? You need, how do you suspect spinal cord compression? So it's a bit of um you need to recall your anatomy knowledge including like how would they present when there's an external compression? Depend on the location of compression. Usually more than 90% of the patients, they start feeling heaviness of their limbs, that's the initial um symptom and then they start feeling loss of sensation, altered sensation, we call it paraesthesia. And then um some patients, if it's called equina, they get sudden paraesthesia or sudden numbness. And then further, if, if the two, if we ignore the sensory symptoms, then start um compressing the motor uh like usually most anterior, they've been malignant deposits come um occur in the body. So when start compressing first, the get sensory loss and then if it's further and if it no sensory symptoms, they might experience more the symptoms. I depend on the location. And sometimes with syndrome, they start autonomic symptoms first, like bladder and bowel incontinence and they fixing the C 345 level. What's the nerve supply to diaphragm or breathing the phrenic now and they might present as breathing difficulty. So whenever patients presenting symptom, you need to have the suspicion of spinal cord compression and this is to recap your knowledge or memory of symptoms related to Quina syndrome where sudden numbness loss of feeling between legs, numbness around the back passage and inability to feel toilet tissues when they wipe. Mm mm. And when it's upper motor neuron symptoms, usually they get con constipation first and then develop diarrhea if it's, if the compression of autonomic nerves affecting the sphincters, and if uh usually the pain comes later after numbness, paraesthesia. So they might sometimes present with uh complaining sexual issues like inability to um achieve an erection or ejaculation. So, whenever patients have this background symptoms and signs. First thing that you need to exclude during an acute setting is spinal cord compression. Imagine that you found all these symptoms and you clinically show more than 80% of this patient might have spinal cord compression. Then you will investigate accordingly while you are organizing your investigations, it's mandatory to start steroids to reduce per le and edema that can prevent further irreversible complications. So what's the dose of steroids? You start? Usually if, if obvious before we uh with, with clinical suspicion, you can start IV DEXAmet on 16 mg treats. But then meantime, you have to advise being a leader in in the medical professional setting with an acute admission unit. You may need to um or delegate your work to your subordinating staff, including you have to advise them about positioning about pain management in like involved the palliative care team earlier and your physio team to advise on positioning, alert them about your suspicion. Then ask radiotherapy radiation oncology team to have a look and organize urgent treatment. Once we confirm with MRI MRI is the investigation of choice to recognize exact lesion, which in a minute, we'll discuss how important when it comes to radiation therapy. I need to discuss with neurosurgical team about the possibilities of uh resection. If it's solitary cord compression. If it's multiple, usually neurosurgical team would not proceed with surgery. However, it's mandatory to discuss with all multidisciplinary teams related to spinal cord compression. And once you handle emergency or urgent management. Then think of adding bisphosphonates. So we are going to discuss about bisphosphonates in detail about those, what you should do, what kind of a bisphosphonate UCL. But for time being, bisphosphonates will prevent skeletal related events secondary to malignant spinal cord compression, so which prevents pathological fractures. So, bisphosphonates is an essential factor in managing spinal cord compression and then targeted therapy including Deniz. Again, we are going to discuss in detail with another topic like malignant hypercalcemia uh about those and proper inject um regimes. And um another option is injecting bone cement when patients, when you think or suspect lesions where the crash injury or fracture risk is high. And then we need to think of definitive treatment for that particular malignancy. If it's breast cancer, malignant deposits in spine or prostate or thyroid, we can start hormonal treatment. And if it's other solid malignancies, we need to start definitive chemotherapy in order to prevent progression of the disease. So this is how we deliver radiation therapy. If we, if we can organize radiation therapy within 40 24 hours of the uh evidence of ob be a spinal cord compression. As you can see in this uh slide that we organize, we call them like dose volume histogram. The it the uh dose range and isodose lines where we can exactly organize the required dose to the compressing lesion and can prevent further progression of the disease. So it works the radiation goes as a straight line where we can organize to deliver exact required dose to the tumor where we suspect tumor deposits and avoiding surrounding normal structures. So, patient positioning could be either supine or prone, depending on patient's comfort. Without aggravating the existing pain and treatment, it can right, rotate right around the patient's body and deliver required dose and gradients accordingly. So, uh radiation therapy, we can organize within 24 hours, 48 hours of obvious um diagnosis of spinal cord compression that will relieve pain, 40 to 80% of patients and gain sphincter control if they already lost sphincter control, 45 to 90% and prevent patient getting like walking disabilities. 90% if we administer radiation therapy before they get motor dysfunctions and those who got walking disabilities can gain ambulation 30% if we deliver earlier than later. So, it's really important to discuss with radiotherapy department if you suspect or confirmed spinal cord compression. So um like once you handle acute management and by the time when it comes for patient's discharge, you need to think of all the complications related to spinal cord compression. So the even we start a definitive treatment, they may have further complications that related to less mobility including thrombosis. So make sure that we prescribe thrombo prophylactics and to prevent pressure, pressure sores. We need to contact community nurses and uh organize patient handling, prevent bed soes organized um proper care at home to prevent, um, orthostatic, prevent positional pneumonia, need, um, prophylactic antibiotics if you suspect any infection and need to organize bladder and bowel problems when we discharge patient who treated for spinal cord compression. So, before we move into the other topic, um, let's open this for a discussion. I'm happy to answer if you have any questions related to spinal cord compression, quina syndrome or raised intracranial pressure. It's the same even though these are broad topic, topics we are going to discuss today. So I'm not going to address one by one brain. Again. If you suspect brain metastasis, patient comes with severe headache, confusion, seizures and deranged consciousness depending on the level or the location of brain metastasis. The same principle applies high dose steroids to reduce reation edema. Usually depending on the severity we can give exam. So 100 mg divided doses. Day one and rapid tao is recommended to prevent steroid induced complications including altered sugar, controls, gastric distress and of motor neuron dysfunctions which related to longterm steroids. Any questions related to spinal cord compression, you can switch on your camera or microphone and ask questions. Yes. If um do you have any questions? Ok. If you don't have any questions, let's move to the next oncological emergency, which is we the obstruction. So now try and recall your memory of um and now it's time to recall your anatomy of a thoracic inlet where if there's a tumor compressing the venous return, what'll happen that'll um lead to form collaterals where you would see dilated collaterals and swollen upper torso, discoloration, plethoric, upper torso and swollen upper limbs. So, appearance of collateralized, dilated chest veins, sciatic abuse in the skin, extreme like extremities of um swollen upper torso and you can see head and neck area, the patient's discomfort, swollen neck. So it's, it's the typical picture which is not very hard to recognize even it may appear in your os or, or diagnosis in your assessment. When it's when patient, um when you see a patient with symptoms and signs of sc obstruction, then you have to think of the possible primary or the cause for ra the obstruction. Usually it's um more than 80% of s ac obstructions are malignant. But you may need, if you can't find any malignant cause, then you have to think of other benign causes like large lymph node. We call uh the cholester nodes where are tuberculosis or syphilis or other conditions that can cause generalized lymphadenopathy can cause obstruction to the venous return and any other mediastinal conditions related to cardiovascular or trauma. And then um when it comes to malignant tumors, um the common malignancies which can cause sva obstruction is mediastinal tumors including lung cancers which can cause upper mediastinal problems. The lymphoma which again can see large mediastinal masses and uh uh patients with sarcoma, they get um thoracic uh sarcoma related to mediastinum and metastatic disease, especially with germ cell tumor and leiomyosarcoma, we can see mediastinal tumors compressing the venous return and uh commonly plasmacytoma. When patient does not diagnosed with multiple myeloma or any other myelodysplastic disease, we can see it could be the initial presentation of uh plasmacytoma. So when it comes to uh your investigations with your clinical suspicion, you may need to do CT head, neck and chest, preferably if you're in a setting where you don't have all the sophisticated investigations, even chest x-ray would show mediastinal widening and you may easily recognize causes for SC syndrome. So when patient comes with SC syndrome, you have to start your ABC D management. It's another talk of ABC DE but anyone in this audience would know airway, breathing, circulation, disabilities and uh alertness. Yeah. Uh you have to think of the environmental causes. So, ABC you know, disabilities including if patient comes with very low G CSF and seizures have to think of meningeal or intracranial lesions and exposure, which is maybe history related to hypothermia or hypothermia. And then think of other less malignant nonmalignant causes. Again, same principle applies when it comes to management of S PC syndrome. If you suspect clinically before you organize all the images and confirmation, if there's no contraindications, starting steroids will prevent life-threatening complications. Sometimes patients do present with severe shortness of breath and the arrest. You may have experienced patients have um severe airway compromised with evasive syndrome. So after confirmation with radiological images, radiotherapy gives a magical response when it comes to well responding tumors, especially lymphoma, uh plasmacytoma, any hematological malignancies are very radiosensitive. So then before we start proper treatment, uh within 48 hours, if we can offer radiation therapy with the steroid cover, we can prevent patients, ended up being life-threatening events. So when you, when you organize radiation therapy to mein tumor, again, it's essential that we have the images to volume primary tumor and then we can uh organize exact do uh deliver to the required tumor while preventing other critical structures around like mediastinum has heart. And then for if it's a on patient, then we have to think of the thymic activities. And while avoiding critical structures, we can easily deliver radiation to the tumor compressing the sup which relieve patients from airway. Um and then um if you think of the critically ill patients, you met at emergency settings with airway obstructions. So the recall management that you have to give steroids in relation to reduced per relation and edema that will give you give the patient immediate symptomatic relief and then need to organize prop exact treatment for disease. Like if it's um lymphoma uh after we establish patient's airway breathing circulation, and if it's a brain related uh complications presenting with the ra obstruction, um we can deliver the specific treatment depending on the tumor. If it's germ cell tumor, again, well responded to chemotherapy, even if it's lymphoma very highly sensitive to chemotherapy So one of the complications related to SV C obstruction is thrombosis. So we need to think of all the other complications related to SV C obstruction and think of starting prophylaxis dose of thrombolytics. Usually in our setting, we start enoxaparin. But if there are uh contraindications, you have to analyze, think of the risks and benefit and balancing the dose adjustments. If none of these works, the stent replacement is life life saving treatment option for severe SVC obstruction. So, before we step into the next oncological emergency, I'm happy to answer if you have any questions related to SVC syndrome. So feel free to ask questions if you have any questions or if you can recall patients you managed in emergency setting with S Raisi syndrome. Do you have any questions? So, um I'm happy to have inter sessions um rather than me talking all alone. However, we can keep these questions to address at the end. But when you switch from one topic to the other, it will be very useful for you to absorb the important factors in each setting of emergency management. So that's why I encourage you to ask questions if you have managed any patients with SV C syndrome, right? So uh next oncological emergency is hyperviscosity syndrome where you would come across patients commonly with hematological malignancies. They have a lot of blood cells like abnormal blood cells. When you take a acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, sometimes you may have seen patients with WBC BC like count 1000 more than two hundreds. And then um you may have seen patients with um multiple myeloma where they are circulating proteins, including light chains very high. So then the circulation is sluggish. So the hyperviscosity syndrome always related to vascular stasis, all these symptoms and signs related to vascular stas like you can see in this picture. So it could be malignant or non malignant hypocellular conditions like polycythemia R Provera, where if a patient comes to an emergency setting with headache, dizziness, and history of stroke, and if you find any of these features like erythromelalgia and peti aic pleuritis. So then try and see the new score and if their BP is high, then your suspicion is higher, especially when you look at a patient with polycythemia or Provera, they are plethoric and you, you could diagnose by looking at their face, they have a lot of visual changes and their hemoglobin level and hematocrit is more than 45. So, hemoglobin level usually more than 150 or 15 g per deciliter and hematocrit level is above 45. So then, so similarly, in multiple myeloma, they get allopathy because of sluggish circulation leading to thrombosis. So if you think of vasculopathy, nephropathy, cerebro, so all the minute peripheral vessels can block with sluggish sluggish circulation which lead to form thrombosis when it comes to the hyperviscosity syndrome. Hydration is the uh first treatment. But if it's severe. And when patients having severe syndromes, like patients, uh level of conscious is low. And if you found evidence for severe hyperviscosity syndrome, starting antithrombotic mandatory. But if it's mild, you can start aspirin to prevent patient worsening and causing symptoms related to thrombosis. But if you think that patient can't reverse or you can't reverse symptoms using thrombolytics hydration and then you have to think of dialys. Um if it's um polycythemia or gravida, you can do omy or encourage patient to go for. If it's hyper macroglobulinemia, we do plasma peres and then uh we have to find the cause, exact cause and treat for cause. So when you treat malignant conditions of special hematological malignancies, there are a lot of other precautions that you need to think of like Tulis syndrome and malignant hypercalcemia related to treatment, which we will discuss in a minute, right. So this is where we commonly use Omy for patients with polycythemia rubra vera or hyperviscosity syndrome. In order to if it's hypocellular condition, polycythemia rubra, we do, we do vena section and this is just a diagram we in 19 seventies or in, in 17th century. So nine how they treated patients with polycythemia rra. So whenever we treat malignant conditions, especially hematological malignancies or solid tumors with high tumor burden. The when tumor catabolize tumor breakdown, the the release of electrolytes causing a lot of abnormalities, we call Tulis syndrome when you work in an emergency setting or an acute admission. If a patient comes with hyperkalemia, you may have come across a lot of patients with hypercalcemia. And then if patient is having hyperphosphatemia and uric acid level is high, the suspicion of tulis syndrome or you need to exclude Tumo S syndrome, which is life saving. So always if patient is having hyperuricemia, hyperkalemia, hyperphosphatemia, suspect tulis syndrome, why I didn't highlight hypocalcemia? Because if you go by hypocalcemia, a lot of patients with solid malignancies, especially with bone metastasis, the develop hypercalcemia because of um osteoclastic activity. So in tumo lysis, you get hypocalcemia because of the body homeostasis, response to hyperphosphatemia. When the phosphate level is high, the kidney balancing the level of calcium. However, if the patient is having other causes which cause hypercalcemia, we can't go by this feature solely for diagnosis of tumo, usually we go by uric acid level. If patients having hyperuricemia, the suspicion is high and it's life threatening if we do not attend tumor lysis syndrome early. So think of all the symptoms related to tumo lysis. If patients having lethargy, fainty, frequent faintish attacks and presented with seizures and then patients whenever you monitor patients having dysrhythmias. And if the history suggestive of previous solid malignancies or any ongoing malignancies, the number one you need to suspect tumo lysis syndrome. So for the inquiry, you may find patients anorexic nausea, vomiting patients having diarrhea, and if patients having muscle cramps, muscle weakness, carpal, needle spasm and pleuritis. So that confirms your clinical suspicion of tulis syndrome. And then immediately you need to think of correcting electrolytes. So it's mandatory to correct electrolyte abnormalities when you suspecting lysis. And number two hydration, if it's mild, if it's not developed or severe up to the seizures, then we can manage with correction of electrolytes and hydration. Make sure that we need to monitor input output at least 100 cc per vigorous hydration to prevent ending up with lethal toxicity. Light, it can cause sudden death with hyperkalemia. So if you suspect severe tulis syndrome, which confirms with hyperuricemia. IV Respi case is the treatment of choice as you can see when DNA breakdown. So the purine nucleic acid and DN breakdown to S hypo and then hypo break down to something by oxidase and then SAN break down to a ALEN, which is the ultimate product after increasing uric acid level. If you like know. So if you suspect them early or if you're treating for a patient who's having hematological malignancy with high tumor, high tumor burden or high cell count, definitely we need to take precautions and we need to prevent tumo lysis using allopurinol. But when patient developed tumors, we can't prevent. So they already developed. So anyway, still allopurinol helps for the further breakdown of cancer cells. Still ras case is the treatment of choice ones established lysis syndrome. And if none of these medications help, then we need to think of dialysis in order to get rid of all these electrolyte imbalances for life saving. So, that's all about tumo lysis. And let's ask if anyone has any questions up to now. Yes, I had a question if that's ok. You know, um, how for hyperviscosity syndrome, there's aquagenic pruritus. What is the mechanism that? So it, it's, uh, it can cause um, the, when it's hyperviscosity. So with sluggish circulation that in induce immune responses so that can release histamine and cause pruritis. I see. And why is it? Sorry? Yeah. Bit aquagenic specifically. It's because we uh hydrate and immediately releasing uh the uh there are a lot of uh tumor related um electrolytes released by uh treating cancers. So breakdown of DNA and then we treat with um hydration knowing that it's uh lysis and that induce the immune responses and histamine release. Oh I see. Oh, perfect. Thank you come. That's great. So I encourage uh all the other um um members who are in the audience to ask questions like crea it. So that will make you absorb this knowledge better than you just be passive participant. So be active and ask questions. Um Let's move to the next topic. Malignant hypercalcemia. So malignant hypercalcemia, you may see a lot of patients coming to emergency setting with very high calcium levels. So that's why I wanted you to not to mask hemolysis knowing that hypocalcemia is a feature of tumo lysis. But patients with a lot of solid malignancies with metastatic deposits can cause hypercalcemia. So, what's the treatment for hypercalcemia? So usually again, it's causes concentration of your circulation. So, hydration is the treatment of number one treatment whenever you suspect or you find evidence with hypercalcemia proper hydration and that can correct calcium level within hours of administration. The uh but if it's severe high potassium, yeah, if the calcium level is more than um eight and if it's definitely need um support with bisphosphonate. But if it's more than 10 and we call it malignant hypercalcemia and it's life threatening. So then we need calcitonin for usually we give 4 to 8 international units per kg subcutaneously or intramuscularly and it act within four hours of administration. But for long term uh the address to the cause which causes hypercalcemia, that's how bisphosphonates acts where it inhibits osteo osteoclastic activity and it stops um osteoclast uh proliferation and go induce programs. So, death of osteoclasts which prevents further releasing of calcium levels. So the action from bisphosphonates acts within 2 to 4 days after administration bisphosphonates, we have sic acid pamidronate or um ibandronate. We are, we usually as first line use Ron acid four mg, which has several reasons why we select Ron acid over pamidronate or Ibandronate because Lin acid can in give within 15 minutes. We are uh we need longer infusion rates for pamidronate if we rapidly infuse or give a rapidly, that can cause renal impairment. So whenever you decide to give bisphosphonate, you need to check kidney functions. And if the arranged kidney functions, usually bisphosphonates um including pamidronate and ibandronate is not ideal, but we can keep alendronate with cautions with longer durations, more than 15 minutes. If there's severe renal impairment like a K grade four, then we need, we can't, it's a contraindication to give bis bisphosphonates if um are less than 30 especially definitely contraindicated to give pamidronate or ibandronate. But still we can consider. So if you do not have Denisa in your settings, so, Deniz mab is safest in case of kidney or deed liver function. So we don't need to do those adjustments. Um If you have Deniz IAB, which act um directly through impairment of osteoclastic activity. So we can give Nuzum 120 mg subcu to get the action, it'll take 2 to 4 days. So, in malignant hypercalcemia, again, it's essential. And whenever you see patients with hypercalcemia, we tend to ignore in your board settings. So try and think of um the solid malignancies which can cause uh metastasis in bones, especially breast cancer, prostate cancer and G I malignancies, lung cancer, very common to cause bone because it's and multiple myeloma is another cause which can cause malignant hypercalcemia. So, um when uh it comes to uh the syndrome of inappropriate ADH syndrome, um its ADH uh secretion with malignancies is very common. So, before we step into inappropriate secretion syndrome, uh any questions regarding malignant hypertension, malignant hypercalcemia. So, um you may have seen patients with very low sodium levels, they can uh present in the acute settings with confusion, seizures and um sometimes especially with coma. Always unless a device one, you have to think of syndrome of inappropriate age h secretion because it is very common with like daily common scenarios, patients with infections, pneumonia or cerebral abscess or primary brain injuries related to meningitis or intracranial hemorrhage, any raised intracranial pressure tumors, brain tumors can increase inappropriate ADH secretion. So and other causes including hypothyroidism, especially um paraneoplastic syndrome related to lung cancers, hepatocellular cancers. Thy cancers can cause high vasopressin livers and certain drugs like carBAMazepine and amitriptyline morphine. Again, we may see patients with morphine opioids for malignancies and it's very common to see low sodium levels. So then you have to have the suspicion of inappropriate ari secretion. How do you treat patient patients with inappropriate ADH secretion? So if it's mild or moderate, if patients having poor concentration, nausea and then you can think of having um fluid restriction is the treatment. Number one modality of treatment for mild ADH secretion. So we should start monitoring them, advise them. Usually if they are having other problems related to fluid like kidney injuries, try and balancing uh fluid intake. Usually we advise 50 cc per hour depending on the body weight, we can adjust. So, fluid restriction, especially patients having very low sodium and if patients having IV fluid, um we need to stop IV fluids, encourage them to have oral fluid intake with restriction. And if it's patients having advanced symptoms, including confusion, somnolence and hallucinations, then they are about to go into grave symptoms like coma. So then still we can start 3% saline or but when it's um severe, we need to start 3% saline with the um slow regime because if we infuse 3% cell line rapidly, that can cause um cerebellar uh cause uh symptoms that is related to rapid correction of um sodium. So, management of inappropriate ADH syndrome, um Do you have any questions related to management of inappropriate ADH? So next topic is uh the very common scenario related to malignancies, which is neutropenic sepsis. In definition, when patients comes with the evidence of sepsis with high new score, then you have to have the suspicion of neutropenic sepsis if patients already known malignancy or on chemotherapy, especially if the absolute neutrophil count is less than 500 per microliter. And if, if the predicted decline up down to 500 within the next two days with the evidence of infection, we need to start antibiotics and usually it's depending on the uh organizational institution policies, the starting antibiotic differ. However, when you suspect a patients with severe sepsis with neutropenia, septic screen is mandatory and need to take blood cultures. So from, from all the suspicion areas including groins, axilla and throat subs which is very important. If they are not responding to um the antibiotics, we start first line, usually with neutropenic sepsis need to cover pseudomonal. And um usually the first line including carbapenem or meropenem and need to add aminoglycoside if there's a septic, obvious septic. So source and if fever is not settling within 48 hours, we, we should we, it's i ideal or it's a luxury if we have the culture reports, but if not, it's mandatory to shift antibiotic broad spectrum cover like Vancomycin or and then if fever is not settling by four days, need to think of adding antifungal and antiviral depending on patients. Um septic screens and clinical scenario, even blood cultures or negative antifungal, it's mandatory, it's neutropenia and absolute neutrophil count less than 51 would need to add antifungal and antivirals. So, uh in summary, we discussed today, the oncological emergencies including structural complications which comes um malignant spinal cord compression quina syndrome, which is almost similar management when it comes to the raised intracranial pressure related to malignant deposits. And we um briefly discussed the metabolic complications including um malignant hypercalcemia, tumo lysis syndrome, and sy syndrome of inappropriate ADH secretion. And then we discuss hematological complications like febrile, neutropenia and hyperviscosity syndrome. And what we did not discuss which could be a magnet or oncological emergency, which is treatment related toxicity, which should warrant another talk, including complications of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immune therapy and uh problems related to G I malignancies and problems related to cardiac complications like malignant pericardial effusion and cardiac tamponade and then problems related to lung cancer, which could cause um pneumothorax and malignant pleural effusions would be another day of topic. But when you, when it comes for your assessments and your exam point of academic point of view, those are the oncological emergencies which you should be able to handle or manage at acute settings, emergency settings. Uh We have a few minutes to answer questions if you have any questions. I think we are your good question. So anyone else, Sana, do you have any questions? Um uh I, I would just like to share something. I just remembered uh a patient that I saw with hemolysis syndrome some time back and it just reminded me uh of that particular case when you spoke of it. Uh So it was actually um I think I saw this patient three or four years back. Uh a gentleman with a lymphoma uh who came post chemotherapy. Uh And we were all concerned um with regard to the high white cell count that the patient had and we were treating the patient uh with uh with uh uh with this for a suspected sepsis. Uh And then uh we noted the fact that the patient had hypocalcemia uh and uh eventually the patient uh went into uh ventricular fibrillation which is a uh uh complication of hypocalcemia. Uh It's, it, it's a case which got it in my head. So it's something that I remembered uh of sharing it. So I think we should be mindful of those uh electrolyte, you know, uh abnor abnormalities that you get in uh demo lysis syndrome. Excellent. That's very true. Always, whenever you work in an emergency setting, we see a lot of like abnormalities but hardly that comes to our mind. Um So we should um always think of lysis if patients have known to malignancy or on treatment except good. I know any other questions. Thank you, Sanka for sharing that uh your experience that is very useful. Anyone else who has um questions or want to share your experience of managing oncological emergencies? Yes, we did. You have any experience managing oncological emergencies? If people are too shy to come onto the screen, you can still use the chat. We would love you to come on the screen. But if you want to, please do use the chat and we can ask those questions or just turn on your microphone and not your camera just in case you're still in your pajamas or something. All right. Actually, I've got an experience, I'd like to share from placement. I remember when I was in third year. Um I was in a General Medicine Ward. Um and I remember a patient came in and she had um I believe she had like, um I think it was brain tumors. And what happened was they, they saw her in the emergency department and she was presenting with kind of like no bowel movements. Um, you know, that classic where you think there's spinal cord compression and it was interesting because she then went home and they said there was nothing wrong with her and then she came back and was blue lighted because she, you know, was paralyzed from the waist down. I remember kind of, I think, like, up until third year, I don't think I quite understood the implications of not catching these signs. And certainly, I think you think about oncological emergencies and you think they're not that common, but, um, from my impression, at least they're a lot more common than you think. Would you agree with that? Yes. Yes. Yeah, definitely. I agree because in our emergency setting, if we take 100 cases, more than 50 is, um related to oncological emergency. And especially as we saw in that slide, we can prevent the patient being not able to walk and we can even regain their walking if we attend or if we have this suspicion, we can prevent them getting, not having bowel or bladder incontinence, which ultimately, it's a massive support to patient's quality of life and patient caregiver. So it's very important to keep that in mind and be cautious about your, like, always think of, could this be a spinal cord compression when patient comes with constipation we never thought of. That's very important. We are sharing that experience. Thank you. I think so. In chat we don't have any questions, isn't it? No, we don't have any questions. Everyone's rather quiet. We did have something earlier on. Let me see. We did have something earlier on. I think Ria's covered her question and we did have from Linde. Is stent replacement put in the SVC to widen it. That was something that was earlier much earlier on. Yeah. Stent replacement. Yeah. Where, um me do your question is um I think relevant because the stent can widen the airway. So it's not to address or to treat the primary course, but we can buy time by inserting a stent till we address the primary course with radiation therapy, chemotherapy or targeted therapy. If we insert a stent, we can prevent a patient go into respiratory failure. So that's the whole aim. Yes, it's widen the respiratory and the airway. Melin do, do you have any other questions regarding that? I know, I think everyone's very quiet, aren't they? They're not used to have this interaction, but I'm really happy that Dra and Sana, they came up with the experience because it's how we retain when, when, when you discuss your experience, that memory goes like to a long term memory when it comes to your assessments. And when actually you practice day to day, when you handle emergencies, this experience, I mean comes first. So each of every topic would be a one day talk if we discuss with case based scenario. That will be the ideal way of discussing rather than just having this talk. I like case based discussions. Ideally, that is the best way of um understanding the physiology and exact treatment. So one day we should do case based discussions. That's the best. I like that. R and Sana came out with their cases. That's excellent. Well, if you're offering to do more teaching, I'm sure we would love to have you this discussion. So I mean, that's the best way of learning then just having talks on one particular topic. Perfect. I'll be up for organizing those. So if anyone has any further questions, please turn your microphone on, tell us those questions. Otherwise we will be ending the session. Um Your feedback form will be, it's in the chat now and it will be um on in your inbox. We do have other events on meal. Uh Coming up, I think there's one tomorrow evening. Is that why you tomorrow? We've got another one. There's another one tomorrow. I've got the link, I'll paste it. Perfect. So if you want to attend that one, um we will be uploading this as catch up. So if you want to catch it again, then you can, we will upload it as catch up. Um If not, then we will see you at our next event. So thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thank you. Just pop that. Thank you very much. Bye.