ABSTRACT
Background: Kawasaki disease (KD) is a vasculitis of early childhood mimicking several infectious diseases. Differentiation between KD and infectious diseases is essential as KD's most important complication-the development of coronary artery aneurysms (CAA)-can be largely avoided by timely treatment with intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG). Currently, KD diagnosis is only based on clinical criteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether routine C-reactive protein (CRP) and additional inflammatory parameters myeloid-related protein 8/14 (MRP8/14 or S100A8/9) and human neutrophil-derived elastase (HNE) could distinguish KD from infectious diseases. Methods and Results: The cross-sectional study included KD patients and children with proven infections as well as febrile controls. Patients were recruited between July 2006 and December 2018 in Europe and USA. MRP8/14, CRP, and HNE were assessed for their discriminatory ability by multiple logistic regression analysis with backward selection and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves. In the discovery cohort, the combination of MRP8/14+CRP discriminated KD patients (n = 48) from patients with infection (n = 105), with area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.88. The HNE values did not improve discrimination. The first validation cohort confirmed the predictive value of MRP8/14+CRP to discriminate acute KD patients (n = 26) from those with infections (n = 150), with an AUC of 0.78. The second validation cohort of acute KD patients (n = 25) and febrile controls (n = 50) showed an AUC of 0.72, which improved to 0.84 when HNE was included. Conclusion: When used in combination, the plasma markers MRP8/14, CRP, and HNE may assist in the discrimination of KD from both proven and suspected infection.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Manual ventilation of intubated patients is a common intervention. It requires skill as well as physical effort and is typically restricted to brief periods. Prolonged manual ventilation may be unavoidable in some scenarios, for example, extreme mass casualty incidents. The present study tested whether nurses are capable of appropriately manually ventilating patients for 6 hours. DESIGN: Volunteers performed ventilation on an electronic simulator for 6 hours while their own cardiorespiratory variables and the quality of the delivered ventilation were measured and recorded. The volunteers scored their perceived level of effort on a standard Borg Scale. SETTING: Research laboratory at the Emergency Department, Tel Aviv Medical Center. SUBJECTS: Ten nursing staff members of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, 25-43 years old. INTERVENTIONS: Volunteers ventilated manually a lung simulator for 6 hours. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The subjects' physiologic states, including blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation, showed no significant changes over time. The quality of delivered ventilation was somewhat variable, but it was stable on the average: average tidal volume ranged between 524.8 and 607.0 mL (p = 0.33). There was a slight but significant increase (7.3-10.9 L/min [p = 0.048]) in minute volume throughout the test period, reaching values consistent with mild hyperventilation. The subjects scored their perceived working effort as very light to fairly light, with a nonsignificant gradual increase in the Borg score as the study progressed. CONCLUSIONS: Manual ventilation of intubated patients can be performed continuously for 6 hours without excessive physical effort on the part of the operator. The quality of delivered ventilation was clinically adequate for all of them. There was a mild but significant trend toward hyperventilation, albeit within safe clinical levels, which was due to an increasing ventilatory rate rather than an increase in tidal volume.
