Admission Pa o2 and Mortality Among PICU Patients and Select Diagnostic Subgroups.

OBJECTIVES: Evaluate the relationship between admission Pa o2 and mortality in a large multicenter dataset and among diagnostic subgroups. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: North American PICUs participating in Virtual Pediatric Systems, LLC (VPS), 2015-2019. PATIENTS: Noncardiac patients 18 years or younger admitted to a VPS PICU with admission Pa o2 . INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Thirteen thousand seventy-one patient encounters were included with an overall mortality of 13.52%. Age categories were equally distributed among survivors and nonsurvivors with the exception of small differences among neonates and adolescents. Importantly, there was a tightly fitting quadratic relationship between admission Pa o2 and mortality, with the highest mortality rates seen among hypoxemic and hyperoxemic patients (likelihood-ratio test p < 0.001). This relationship persisted after adjustment for illness severity using modified Pediatric Index of Mortality 3 scores. A similar U-shaped relationship was demonstrated among patients with diagnoses of trauma, head trauma, sepsis, renal failure, hemorrhagic shock, and drowning. However, among the 1,500 patients admitted following cardiac arrest, there was no clear relationship between admission Pa o2 and mortality. CONCLUSIONS: In a large multicenter pediatric cohort, admission Pa o2 demonstrates a tightly fitting quadratic relationship with mortality. The persistence of this relationship among some but not all diagnostic subgroups suggests the pathophysiology of certain disease states may modify the hyperoxemia association.

Implementation and Maintenance of a Pediatric Severe Burn Guidelines Quality Improvement Project.

Introduction: Critically injured pediatric burn patients require specialized management, yet few verified pediatric burn centers exist in the United States. Many pediatric hospitals have resources to care for severely burned patients but lack standardized care guidelines, which improve outcomes. To improve the morbidity and mortality of severely burned pediatric patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit, we created a specialized burn team. We implemented Pediatric Severe Burn Guidelines, focusing on improving fluid resuscitation accuracy and providing timely nutritional support. Methods: This investigation is of a 9-year (2010-2019) retrospective preintervention and postintervention study of the effect of the formation of a multidisciplinary burn leadership committee and development and implementation of Pediatric Severe Burn Guidelines. The primary outcome measures are increasing the accuracy of fluid resuscitation and improving the timely administration of nutritional support. The process measure is the percentage of time the electronic health record power plan was used for burn admissions with burn leadership review of the cases. Balancing measures are pediatric intensive care unit and hospital length of stay. Results: Preprotocol patients received acceptable fluid resuscitation 25% (5/20) of the time compared to 61.5% (8/13) of the time in postprotocol patients (P = 0.04). In postprotocol patients, there is an improvement in the timely placement of postpyloric feeding tube and initiation of feeds 48 hours after admission. Conclusions: Extensive guidelines for standardized care require careful implementation and monitoring of adherence gaps. Creating a specialized burn team and implementing clinical guidelines standardize care leading to improvement in critical patient outcomes.

Fulminant Clostridium difficile toxic megacolon in a pediatric heart transplant recipient.

CD can be a cause of diarrhea in pediatric heart transplant recipients. Fulminant colitis can develop in immunocompromised patients with CD and progress to toxic megacolon. We report a case of a 10-yr-old girl who developed CD diarrhea and subsequently fulminant colitis with clinical signs and symptoms of abdominal compartment syndrome. She was taken to the operating room emergently and found to have toxic megacolon. She underwent a sub-total abdominal colectomy and end-ileostomy, and made a rapid recovery. Rapid recognition of the severity of the disease in the post-operative transplant patient is imperative as abdominal compartment syndrome may develop requiring surgical management. In pediatric heart transplant patients with diarrhea, we recommend a heightened clinical awareness with aggressive treatment given the risk of progression to fulminant CD and toxic megacolon.