Current opinion in pediatrics
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Curr. Opin. Pediatr. · Jun 2017
ReviewThermoregulate, autoregulate and ventilate: brain-directed critical care for pediatric cardiac arrest.
Cardiac arrest in childhood is associated with a high risk for mortality and poor long-term functional outcome. This review discusses the current evidence for neuroprotective therapies and goals for postarrest care in the context of the pathophysiology of hypoxic-ischemic injury, modalities for neurologic prognostication in these children and potential future monitoring paradigms for maximizing cerebral perfusion in the postarrest period. ⋯ Therapeutic strategies after cardiac arrest seek to maximize cerebral perfusion while mitigating the effects of secondary brain injury and loss of autoregulation. Future research into new monitoring strategies and better long-term outcome measures may allow more precise targeting of therapies to these goals.
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The approach to febrile young infants remains challenging. This review serves as an update on the care of febrile infants less than 90 days of age with a focus on the changing epidemiology of serious bacterial infection (SBI), refinement of management strategies based on biomarkers, and the development of novel diagnostics. ⋯ The majority of febrile infants with an SBI will have a UTI but the diagnosis of invasive bacterial infection in infants continues to be challenging. The use of procalcitonin and CRP as biomarkers in prediction algorithms facilitates identification of low-risk infants.
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Brain-directed critical care for children is a relatively new area of subspecialization in pediatric critical care. Pediatric neurocritical care teams combine the expertise of neurology, neurosurgery, and critical care medicine. The positive impact of delivering specialized care to pediatric patients with acute neurological illness is becoming more apparent, but the optimum way to implement and sustain the delivery of this is complicated and poorly understood. We aim to provide emerging evidence supporting that effective implementation of pediatric neurocritical care pathways can improve patient survival and outcomes. We also provide an overview of the most effective strategies across the field of implementation science that can facilitate deployment of neurocritical care pathways in the pediatric ICU. ⋯ Pediatric and neonatal neurocritical care programs that support evidence-based care can be effectively structured using appropriately sequenced implementation strategies to improve outcomes across a variety of patient populations and in a variety of healthcare settings.