Kurt R Denninghoff

Kurt R Denninghoff

Professor, Emergency Medicine
Professor, Optical Sciences
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-1551

Research Interest

Over the last seven years, I have developed an innovative clinical research nursing program, new retinal oximetry techniques including a prototype device called the ROx-3 and a research associate volunteer program. I have been working on improving the prehospital care for children and adults with traumatic brain injury and have been successful organizing a collaborative that is rapidly advancing this field. Recently, I have begun working with others to improve the care of children with asthma presenting to the emergency department. My clinical trials research, clinical device testing, injury control efforts, mentoring and research center leadership experience taken together make me very well suited to serve as the Southwest PECARN Node and Arizona HEDA PI.

Publications

Spaite, D. W., Hu, C., Bobrow, B. J., Chikani, V., Gaither, J. B., Barnhart, B., Adelson, P. D., Denninghoff, K. R., Rice, A. D., Viscusi, C. D., Sherrill, D. L., & Keim, S. M. (2017). Combined Prehospital Hypoxia-Hypotension “Depth-Duration Dose” and Mortality in Major Traumatic Brain Injury. Prehospital Emergency Care.

Spaite DW, Hu C, Bobrow BJ, Chikani V, Gaither JB, Barnhart B, Adelson PD, Denninghoff KR, Rice AD, Viscusi C, Sherrill D, Keim SM: Combined Prehospital Hypoxia-Hypotension “Depth-Duration Dose” and Mortality in Major Traumatic Brain Injury. Prehospital Emerg Care 2018;22(1):105-106.

DeLuca, L. A., Walsh, P., Davidson, D. D., Stoneking, L. R., Yang, L. M., Grall, K. J., Gonzaga, M. J., Larson, W. J., Stolz, U., Sabb, D. M., & Denninghoff, K. R. (2017). Impact and feasibility of an emergency department-based ventilator-associated pneumonia bundle for patients intubated in an academic emergency department. American journal of infection control, 45(2), 151-157.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) has been linked to emergency department (ED) intubation and length of stay (LOS). We assessed VAP prevalence in ED intubated patients, feasibility of ED VAP prevention, and effect on VAP rates.

Undurraga Perl, V. J., Leroux, B., Cook, M. R., Watson, J., Fair, K., Martin, D. T., Kerby, J. D., Williams, C., Inaba, K., Wade, C. E., Cotton, B. A., Del Junco, D. J., Fox, E. E., Scalea, T. M., Tilley, B. C., Holcomb, J. B., Schreiber, M. A., & , P. S. (2016). Damage-control resuscitation and emergency laparotomy: Findings from the PROPPR study. The journal of trauma and acute care surgery, 80(4), 568-74; discussion 574-5.

The Pragmatic Randomized Optimal Platelet and Plasma Ratios (PROPPR) trial has demonstrated that damage-control resuscitation, a massive transfusion strategy targeting a balanced delivery of plasma-platelet-red blood cell in a ratio of 1:1:1, results in improved survival at 3 hours and a reduction in deaths caused by exsanguination in the first 24 hours compared with a 1:1:2 ratio. In light of these findings, we hypothesized that patients receiving 1:1:1 ratio would have improved survival after emergency laparotomy.

Qureshi, A. I., Palesch, Y. Y., Barsan, W. G., Hanley, D. F., Hsu, C. Y., Martin, R. L., Moy, C. S., Silbergleit, R., Steiner, T., Suarez, J. I., Toyoda, K., Wang, Y., Yamamoto, H., & Yoon, B. W. (2016). Intensive Blood-Pressure Lowering in Patients with Acute Cerebral Hemorrhage. The New England journal of medicine, 375(11), 1033-43.

Background Limited data are available to guide the choice of a target for the systolic blood-pressure level when treating acute hypertensive response in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage. Methods We randomly assigned eligible participants with intracerebral hemorrhage (volume, 60 cm(3)) and a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 5 or more (on a scale from 3 to 15, with lower scores indicating worse condition) to a systolic blood-pressure target of 110 to 139 mm Hg (intensive treatment) or a target of 140 to 179 mm Hg (standard treatment) in order to test the superiority of intensive reduction of systolic blood pressure to standard reduction; intravenous nicardipine to lower blood pressure was administered within 4.5 hours after symptom onset. The primary outcome was death or disability (modified Rankin scale score of 4 to 6, on a scale ranging from 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) at 3 months after randomization, as ascertained by an investigator who was unaware of the treatment assignments. Results Among 1000 participants with a mean (±SD) systolic blood pressure of 200.6±27.0 mm Hg at baseline, 500 were assigned to intensive treatment and 500 to standard treatment. The mean age of the patients was 61.9 years, and 56.2% were Asian. Enrollment was stopped because of futility after a prespecified interim analysis. The primary outcome of death or disability was observed in 38.7% of the participants (186 of 481) in the intensive-treatment group and in 37.7% (181 of 480) in the standard-treatment group (relative risk, 1.04; 95% confidence interval, 0.85 to 1.27; analysis was adjusted for age, initial GCS score, and presence or absence of intraventricular hemorrhage). Serious adverse events occurring within 72 hours after randomization that were considered by the site investigator to be related to treatment were reported in 1.6% of the patients in the intensive-treatment group and in 1.2% of those in the standard-treatment group. The rate of renal adverse events within 7 days after randomization was significantly higher in the intensive-treatment group than in the standard-treatment group (9.0% vs. 4.0%, P=0.002). Conclusions The treatment of participants with intracerebral hemorrhage to achieve a target systolic blood pressure of 110 to 139 mm Hg did not result in a lower rate of death or disability than standard reduction to a target of 140 to 179 mm Hg. (Funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center; ATACH-2 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01176565 .).

Stoneking, L. R., Winkler, J. P., DeLuca, L. A., Stolz, U., Stutz, A., Luman, J. C., Gaub, M., Wolk, D. M., Fiorello, A. B., & Denninghoff, K. R. (2015). Physician documentation of sepsis syndrome is associated with more aggressive treatment. The western journal of emergency medicine, 16(3), 401-7.

Timely recognition and treatment of sepsis improves survival. The objective is to examine the association between recognition of sepsis and timeliness of treatments.