High-Flow Oxygen and Other Noninvasive Respiratory Support Therapies in Bronchiolitis: Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analyses.

OBJECTIVES: We present a systematic review on the effectiveness of noninvasive respiratory support techniques in bronchiolitis. DATA SOURCES: Systematic review with pairwise meta-analyses of all studies and network meta-analyses of the clinical trials. STUDY SELECTION: Patients below 24 months old with bronchiolitis who require noninvasive respiratory support were included in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), non-RCT, and cohort studies in which high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) was compared with conventional low-flow oxygen therapy (LFOT) and/or noninvasive ventilation (NIV). DATA EXTRACTION: Emergency wards and hospitalized patients with bronchiolitis. DATA SYNTHESIS: A total of 3,367 patients were analyzed in 14 RCTs and 8,385 patients in 14 non-RCTs studies. Only in nonexperimental studies, HFNC is associated with a lower risk of invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) than NIV (odds ratio, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.42-0.58), with no differences in experimental studies. There were no differences between HFNC and NIV in other outcomes. HFNC is more effective than LFOT in reducing oxygen days and treatment failure. In the network meta-analyses of clinical trials, NIV was the most effective intervention to avoid invasive MV (surface under the cumulative ranking curve [SUCRA], 57.03%) and to reduce days under oxygen therapy (SUCRA, 79.42%), although crossover effect estimates between interventions showed no significant differences. The included studies show methodological heterogeneity, but it is only statistically significant for the reduction of days of oxygen therapy and length of hospital stay. CONCLUSIONS: Experimental evidence does not suggest that high-flow oxygen therapy has advantages over LFOT as initial treatment nor over NIV as a rescue treatment.

Outbreak of Enterovirus Infection with Neurological Presentations in a Pediatric Population in Northern Spain: A Clinical Observational Study.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to describe the cases of neurological disease related to the outbreak of enterovirus (EV) in three regions in Northern Spain during 2016. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Multicenter retrospective observational study. Clinical, radiological, and microbiological data were analyzed from patients younger than 15 years with confirmed EV-associated neurological disease admitted to 10 hospitals of Asturias, Cantabria, and Castile and Leon between January 1 and December 31, 2016. RESULTS: Fifty-five patients were included. Median age was 24 months (interquartile range = 18.5 months). Fifteen patients were classified as aseptic meningitis (27.3%). In total, 37 cases presented brainstem encephalitis (67.3%), 25 of them due to EV-A71 with excellent prognosis (84.6% asymptomatic 2 months following the onset). Three cases of acute flaccid myelitis (5.5%) by EV-D68 were reported and presented persistent paresis 2 months following the onset. Microbiological diagnosis by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was performed in all cases, finding EV in cerebrospinal fluid in meningitis, but not in brainstem encephalitis and acute flaccid myelitis, where EV was found in respiratory or rectal samples. Step therapy was administrated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG; 32.7%), methylprednisolone (10%), and plasmapheresis (3.6%). Four patients received fluoxetine (7.3%). Twenty patients needed to be admitted to pediatric intensive care unit (36.4%). CONCLUSION: Clinical, microbiological, and radiological diagnosis is essential in outbreaks of EV neurological disease, taking into account that it can be difficult to identify EV-A71 and EV-D68 in CSF, requiring throat or rectal samples. There is not specific treatment to these conditions and the efficacy and understanding of the mechanism of action of immune-modulatory treatment (IVIG, corticosteroids, and plasmapheresis) is limited.

Bayes to the Rescue: Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Has Less Mortality Than High-Flow Oxygen.

OBJECTIVES: The merits of high-flow nasal cannula oxygen versus bubble continuous positive airway pressure are debated in children with pneumonia, with suggestions that randomized controlled trials are needed. In light of a previous randomized controlled trial showing a trend for lower mortality with bubble continuous positive airway pressure, we sought to determine the probability that a new randomized controlled trial would find high-flow nasal cannula oxygen superior to bubble continuous positive airway pressure through a "robust" Bayesian analysis. DESING, SETTING, PATIENTS, AND INTERVENTIONS: Sample data were extracted from the trial by Chisti et al, and requisite to "robust" Bayesian analysis, we specified three prior distributions to represent clinically meaningful assumptions. These priors (reference, pessimistic, and optimistic) were used to generate three scenarios to represent the range of possible hypotheses. 1) "Reference": we believe bubble continuous positive airway pressure and high-flow nasal cannula oxygen are equally effective with the same uninformative reference priors; 2) "Sceptic on high-flow nasal cannula oxygen": we believe that bubble continuous positive airway pressure is better than high-flow nasal cannula oxygen (bubble continuous positive airway pressure has an optimistic prior and high-flow nasal cannula oxygen has a pessimistic prior); and 3) "Enthusiastic on high-flow nasal cannula oxygen": we believe that high-flow nasal cannula oxygen is better than bubble continuous positive airway pressure (high-flow nasal cannula oxygen has an optimistic prior and bubble continuous positive airway pressure has a pessimistic prior). Finally, posterior empiric Bayesian distributions were obtained through 100,000 Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: In all three scenarios, there was a high probability for more death from high-flow nasal cannula oxygen compared with bubble continuous positive airway pressure (reference, 0.98; sceptic on high-flow nasal cannula oxygen, 0.982; enthusiastic on high-flow nasal cannula oxygen, 0.742). The posterior 95% credible interval on the difference in mortality identified a future randomized controlled trial would be extremely unlikely to find a mortality benefit for high-flow nasal cannula oxygen over bubble continuous positive airway pressure, regardless of the scenario. Interpreting these findings using the "range of practical equivalence" framework would recommend rejecting the hypothesis that high-flow nasal cannula oxygen is superior to bubble continuous positive airway pressure for these children. CONCLUSIONS: For children younger than 5 years with pneumonia, high-flow nasal cannula oxygen has higher mortality than bubble continuous positive airway pressure. A future randomized controlled trial in this population is unlikely to find high-flow nasal cannula oxygen superior to bubble continuous positive airway pressure.

Increasing trend in patients with life-limiting and complex chronic conditions.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: To estimate the frequency of patients with diagnoses associated with life-limiting conditions (LLCs) or complex chronic conditions (CCCs). METHODS: Retrospective mixed population-based and hospital-based cohort study. Study universe consisted of the population aged less than 18 years of an autonomous community in Spain in the 2001-2021 period; the cases were patients admitted to hospital with a diagnosis associated with LLC or CCC during this period. We estimated age-adjusted annual prevalences and analysed changes in trends using joinpoint regression. RESULTS: The prevalence of LLCs increased significantly from 20.7 per 10 000 inhabitants under 18 years in 2001 to 51.3 per 10 000 in 2019. There was also a significant increase in CCCs from 39.9 per 10 000 in 2001 to 54.4 per 10 000 in 2019. The prevalence of patients with any of these conditions rose from 45 per 10 000 in 2001 to 86.8 per 10 000 in 2019; 30.3% of these patients had conditions of both types. There was a turning point in this increasing trend between 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of patients requiring specialized care has increased progressively in the last 20 years, similar to what has happened in other countries. The magnitude of the affected population must be taken into account when planning specialized paediatric palliative care and complex chronic care services.

Psychogenic cough: a diagnosis of exclusion.

Cough is the most common respiratory symptom and a common reason for consultation in both primary care and emergency departments, as a result of family concerns. We report an 11-year-old girl who complains of constant cough episode for 4 hours without any rest. After sequential treatment with nebulized salbutamol and budesonide, dexamethasone, codeine, and midazolam, the patient showed transient improvement, with cough disappearing altogether, but 10 minutes later, it started over with the same intensity from the beginning. When she got distracted and talked, the access decreased, starting again when the word "cough" or similar terms were mentioned in front of her. She remained asymptomatic for 2 hours, after which her symptoms began similarly to the initial, coinciding with taking 1 tablet of clarithromycin, so it was decided to start a continuous infusion of midazolam, with the cough disappearing completely after 15 minutes of starting the infusion. One hour after starting the infusion, the child fell asleep. At waking, the cough had disappeared. She continued treatment with oral codeine for 3 days, showing no relapse. It is important to include psychogenic cough in the differential diagnosis of persistent or recurrent chronic cough and asthma that is difficult to control and communicate that diagnostic criteria are based on indicative symptoms (cough access only when awake), with normal radiology, spirometry, and bronchoscopy, to avoid misdiagnosis and inadequate pharmacological actions. Successful treatment is based on recognizing the underlying cause and use of different forms of cognitive-behavioral therapies that aim to break the habit.

[CPAP vs oxygen therapy in infants being transported due to acute respiratory failure]. / CPAP vs oxigenoterapia convencional en lactantes trasladados por insuficiencia respiratoria.

OBJECTIVE: The aims of our study are to evaluate the effectiveness and security of CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) in infants transferred with acute respiratory failure (ARF) and to compare their evolution in PICU between CPAP vs oxygen therapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational and analytical study by reviewing the health records of infants with ARF aged 0 to 12months that required interhospital transfer to the PICU. RESULTS: We included 110 patients: 71 transported with CPAP and 39 with oxygen therapy. The main cause of ARF was acute bronchiolitis (81.8%). The median level of CPAP was 7cmH2O (interquartile range, 6-7). Controlling by the previous values in specific multivariable models, CPAP produced a significant decrease in the Wood-Downes score (beta = -1.08; 95% CI = -1.76 to -0.40; P = .002) and the heart rate (beta = -19.64, 95% CI = -28.46 to -10.81; P < .001). No patients required endotracheal intubation during transport. During the PICU stay, the intubation rate was similar in the CPAP group (7%) and the oxygen therapy group (5.1%) (P=.689). The proportion of patients that required bilevel positive airway pressure within 6hours of admission to the PICU was higher in the oxygen therapy group: 100% (11/11) vs 69.2% (18/26), P=.04. CONCLUSIONS: Early administration of CPAP to infants with ARF was a safe respiratory support intervention during interhospital transport. During patient transport, the use of CPAP achieved greater decreases in the Wood-Downes score and heart rate compared to oxygen therapy.

Anaphylactic reaction due to cefuroxime axetil: A rare cause of anaphylaxis.

One of the most used cephalosporins in clinical practice is cefuroxime axetil. Anaphylaxis due to the administration of cefuroxime is considered a rare event. We report a case of anaphylactic reaction after the administration of cefuroxime in a child who had tolerated the drug in past exposures. Diagnostic workup is recommended for all patients with at least a moderate anaphylactic reaction (hypotension, tachycardia, bronchial hyperreactivity). This should include a detailed history of the event, previous allergies, and underlying conditions. Unfortunately, all currently available diagnostic approaches (IgE, skin-prick-test, tryptase) leave a significant percentage of non-diagnostic results and false positive or negative outcomes.

[Organ donation after brain death due to child abuse]. / Donación de órganos tras muerte encefálica debida a maltrato infantil.

More than 40 percent of deaths from child abuse occur among children younger than 5 years. The injury pattern in child abuse is block abuse head trauma which in the most severe cases produces brain death. Organ donation is uncommon in children younger than five years. We describe two cases of child abuse that caused brain death; subsequently they were subsidiary for organ donation. It is very important to establish a good coordination between health, social care and legal assistance teams to obtain organ donation.

Donación de órganos tras muerte encefálica debida a maltrato infantil / Organ donation after brain death due to child abuse

Más del 40 por ciento de las muertes por maltrato infantil se producen entre los niños menores de 5 años. El patrón de lesión es el traumatismo encefalocraneano abusivo, que, en los casos más graves, conduce a la muerte cerebral. La donación de órganos en menores de 5 años es poco frecuente. Se describen dos casos de maltrato infantil que causó la muerte encefálica en un niño de un mes y otro de cuatro años de edad, quienes posteriormente fueron candidatos para la donación de órganos. Es crucial la existencia de una buena coordinación entre los equipos sanitarios, de asistencia social y jurídica para intentar obtener la donación de órganos en los casos de muerte encefálica secundaria a maltrato.

More than 40 percent of deaths from child abuse occur among children younger than 5 years. The injury pattern in child abuse is block abuse head trauma which in the most severe cases produces brain death. Organ donation is uncommon in children younger than five years. We describe two cases of child abuse that caused brain death; subsequently they were subsidiary for organ donation. It is very important to establish a good coordination between health, social care and legal assistance teams to obtain organ donation.