Clinical Aspects and Prognostic Factors of Near Drowning Children

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: We intended to find out clinical aspects and prognostic factors of near drowning children in this study. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study on twenty eight near-drowning children, who were admitted to Gangneung Asan Hospital from March, 1996 to March, 2002. We investigated their clinical aspects and the differences between two groups, namely a good prognosis group and a poor prognosis group. Those in the good prognosis group had no neurologic impairments and were fully recovered while those in the poor prognosis group died or fell into vegetative states. RESULTS: Out of 28 patients, there were 18 males(64.3%) and 10 females(35.7%). Age distribution was < or =4 years in 10 cases, 5 to 8 years in 7 cases, 9 to 12 years in 8 cases, and 13 to 16 years in 3 cases. Seasonal distribution was summer in 18 cases, spring in 6 cases, autumn in 3 cases, and winter in 1 case. Submersion time was < or =5 minutes in 15 cases, 5 to 10 minutes in 7 cases, and unknown in 7 cases. Initial blood glucose level was 175.2+/-88.0 mg/dL and initial arterial blood pH was 7.24+/-0.21. Good prognosis group had 23 out of 28 cases(82.1%) while poor prognosis group had 5 out of 28 cases(17.9%) which included 4 deaths and 1 vegetative case. Between the two groups there were no significant differences in the distributions of sex, age, season, submersion place, transfer time to hospital and resuscitation time. However, submersion time, mechanical ventilation need, initial blood glucose level and initial arterial pH were significantly different between the two groups. CONCLUSION: We found out that poor prognosis is expected for near-drowning children of submersion time over 10 minutes, applied mechanical ventilation, high initial blood glucose level, and low initial arterial blood pH.