Immediate outcome following valve surgery for rheumatic heart disease: the first local experience from Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Rheumatic heart disease is the most common cardiac diseases in developing countries including Ethiopia. The current study aimed to describe the immediate surgical outcome following valve surgery for rheumatic heart disease in Ethiopia. METHODS: Data were collected through chart abstraction from two centres in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: the Cardiac Center of Ethiopia and El Ouzier cardiac centre. Included were all patients who were operated for rheumatic valvular heart disease in the mentioned centres by local cardiac surgical team during the period from June 2017 to April 2020. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the study population at admission and within 30 days of the index cardiac surgery were collected. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20.0 for windows was used to analyse the data. RESULT: Of the 114 patients included in the study (median age 31 years with interquartile range of 23-40), 62 (54.4%) of them were female. Surgical procedures done were triple valve surgery 9 (7.9%) patients, mitral and tricuspid valves 26 (22.8%) patients, double-valve 16 (14.0%) patients, single-valve surgery 50.9% (11 aortic and 47 mitral valves) of patients, redo mitral valve surgery 3 (2.6%) patients, and left maze with mitral valve surgery 2 (1.8%) patients. Of the total, 103 (90.4%) of them had mitral valve surgery. Post-operatively, 5 (4.4%) patients died within 30 days following the index surgery. CONCLUSION: Immediate surgical outcome following valve surgery for rheumatic heart disease had excellent outcome in our setting. This evidence can be taken as a show of success in building local capacity to manage rheumatic heart disease surgically.

A research definition and framework for acute paediatric critical illness across resource-variable settings: a modified Delphi consensus.

The true global burden of paediatric critical illness remains unknown. Studies on children with life-threatening conditions are hindered by the absence of a common definition for acute paediatric critical illness (DEFCRIT) that outlines components and attributes of critical illness and does not depend on local capacity to provide critical care. We present an evidence-informed consensus definition and framework for acute paediatric critical illness. DEFCRIT was developed following a scoping review of 29 studies and key concepts identified by an interdisciplinary, international core expert panel (n=24). A modified Delphi process was then done with a panel of multidisciplinary health-care global experts (n=109) until consensus was reached on eight essential attributes and 28 statements as the basis of DEFCRIT. Consensus was reached in two Delphi rounds with an expert retention rate of 89%. The final consensus definition for acute paediatric critical illness is: an infant, child, or adolescent with an illness, injury, or post-operative state that increases the risk for or results in acute physiological instability (abnormal physiological parameters or vital organ dysfunction or failure) or a clinical support requirement (such as frequent or continuous monitoring or time-sensitive interventions) to prevent further deterioration or death. The proposed definition and framework provide the conceptual clarity needed for a unified approach for global research across resource-variable settings. Future work will centre on validating DEFCRIT and determining high priority measures and guidelines for data collection and analysis that will promote its use in research.