Abdominal compartment syndrome

The definition, and why organ dysfunction is inside it

The page puts it as one line: compartment syndrome = intra-abdominal pressure above 20 mmHg + organ dysfunction, then urgent decompression.

The pressure alone is not the syndrome. That is the whole point of it: a high intra-abdominal pressure on its own is a reading, and it is abdominal compartment syndrome only when an organ has started to fail with it.

The numbers offered, and which one is right

The five pressures put up against each other are above 8 mmHg, above 12 mmHg, above 20 mmHg with organ failure, above 15 mmHg, and above 30 mmHg regardless of symptoms.

The answer is above 20 mmHg with organ failure. The trap is the last one: above 30 mmHg regardless of symptoms is a higher number and still wrong, because it drops the organ failure out of it.

The picture it is asked in

A patient with acute pancreatitis develops increasing abdominal distention and persistent tachycardia. That is the stem: acute pancreatitis, increasing abdominal distention, persistent tachycardia.