Paediatric drugs
-
Pertussis is a potentially severe respiratory disease, which affects all age groups from young infants to older adults and is responsible for an estimated 195,000 deaths occurred globally in 2008. Active research is ongoing to better understand the pathogenesis, immunology, and diagnosis of pertussis. For diagnosis, molecular assays (e.g., polymerase chain reaction) for detection of Bordetella pertussis have become more widely available and support improved outbreak detection. ⋯ Continued surveillance for pertussis will be important to identify opportunities for reducing young infants' exposure and reducing the impact of outbreaks among school-aged children. Laboratory-based surveillance for newly emerging strains of B. pertussis will be important to identify strains that may evade protection elicited by currently available vaccines. Efforts to develop new-generation pertussis vaccines should be considered now in anticipation of vaccine development programs, which may require ten or more years to deliver a licensed vaccine.
-
As pediatric imaging capabilities have increased in scope, so have the complexities of providing procedural sedation in this environment. While efforts by many organizations have dramatically increased the safety of pediatric procedural sedation in general, radiology sedation creates several special challenges for the sedation provider. These challenges require implementation of additional safeguards to promote safety during sedation while maintaining effective and efficient care. ⋯ Increasingly, combinations of agents to either achieve the conditions required or mitigate/counterbalance adverse effects of single agents are being utilized with success. To continue to provide effective imaging sedation, it is incumbent on sedation providers to maintain familiarity with continuing evolutions within radiology environments, as well as comfort and competence with multiple sedation agents/regimens. This review discusses the challenges associated with radiology sedation and outlines various available agent options and combinations, with the intent of facilitating appropriate matching of agent(s) with patient and procedural needs.
-
The objective of this study was to compare the safety and efficacy of inhaled plus intravenous (IV) colistin with that of IV colistin alone in critically ill children with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) due to colistin-only susceptible (COS) Gram-negative bacteria (GNB). ⋯ The present study has demonstrated that the addition of inhaled colistin to IV colistin led to a shorter TBE in critically ill children with VAP due to COS GNB. However, it did not lead to a significant difference in the clinical and microbiological outcomes of VAP.
-
Clinical research in the pediatric emergency department (ED) has been rapidly growing in the past decade, and has resulted in some of the most important milestone studies in the pediatric medical literature. However, it presents a unique ethical goal and requires that additional challenges, such as the acute medical condition, fear and anxiety, unfamiliar physician(s), fatigue, and lack of time be addressed in addition to the standard ethical requirements. These may impair several fundamental elements of research, including the patient enrollment process, informed consent/assent, randomization, and others. ⋯ Nevertheless, we are also obliged to find ethical ways to include them in appropriate research endeavors that aim to improve treatments for conditions unique to the ED. This paper explores and overviews the most recent literature in order to characterize the nature of ethical challenges complicating clinical research in pediatric emergency medicine, and then suggests some ethically sound solutions such as deferred/waived consent, designated research staff, and alternative study designs. Finally, a few examples of prospective, blinded randomized trials involving drugs in pediatric emergency medicine are provided, with special emphasis on how the investigators are overcoming the obvious ethical challenges.
-
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common chronic rheumatic disease in childhood. Persistent pain is the most common and distressing symptom of JIA, and pain in childhood arthritis is multifactorial. Children and adolescents with persistent pain due to JIA experience significantly more problems with physical, emotional, social, and school functioning than healthy individuals. ⋯ Pharmacologic strategies for the treatment of pain in JIA include aggressive treatment of the underlying disease as well as the use of acetaminophen and systemic and topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for persistent mild pain. Opioids can be considered in the case of moderate to severe persistent pain. Physical therapies and psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy are also key components of pain management in JIA.