Early Tracheostomy for Severe Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury is Associated with Reduced Intensive Care Unit Length of Stay and Total Ventilator Days.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether, similar to adults, early tracheostomy in pediatric patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) improves inhospital outcomes including ventilator days, intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS), and total hospital LOS when compared to late tracheostomy. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort analysis. SETTING: The Pediatric Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) database. PATIENTS One hundred twenty-seven pediatric patients <16 years old with severe (>3) abbreviated injury scale TBI who underwent early (days 1-6) or late (day ≥7) tracheostomy between 2014 and 2016. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The Pediatric TQIP database was queried for patients <16 years old with severe TBI, who underwent tracheostomy. Patient demographics and outcomes of early versus late tracheostomy were compared using Student t test, Mann-Whitney U test, and χ2 analysis. Sixteen patients underwent early tracheostomy while 111 underwent late tracheostomy. The groups had similar distributions of age, gender, mechanism of injury, and mean injury severity scores (P > .05). Early tracheostomy was associated with decreased ICU LOS (early 17 vs late 32 days, P < .05) and ventilator days (early 9.7 vs late 27.1 days, P < .05). There was no difference in total LOS (early 26.7 vs late 41.3 days, P = .06), the incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (early 6.3% vs late 2.7%, P = .45), pneumonia (early 12.5% vs late 29.7%, P = .15), or mortality (early 0% vs late 2%, P = .588) between the 2 groups. CONCLUSION: Similar to adults, early tracheostomy in pediatric patients with severe TBI is associated with decreased ICU LOS and ventilator days. Future prospective trials are needed to confirm these findings. ARTICLE TWEET Early tracheostomy in pediatric patients with severe TBI is associated with decreased ICU LOS and ventilator days.