Search

Background: We aimed to identify the factors affecting the inhospital Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) to investigate the effect of the time of in-hospital CPR on its immediate outcome in pediatric patients. Methods: This retrospective study investigated CPR events performed at a teaching hospital in Tehran, Iran, from March 2018 to March 2019. After obtaining the necessary academic and ethical approvals, the pertinent data were transcribed from patient records and analyzed. No identifying data about patients or their families were extracted. Results: Chi-square test showed a significant difference in the occurrence of CPR on two-hour time blocks (p=0.041), with dips at 0-2 a.m. and 12-2 p.m. and heights at 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. (representing 5, 6, 17 and 17 CPR events, respectively). The occurrence of CPR during the night shift was significantly less than in the morning and evening shifts (p=0.000 and 0.005 respectively). Of 161 subjects with a known immediate outcome of CPR, 86 (53.4%) survived, and 75 (46.6%) died. The outcome was significantly less favorable in the evening shift compared to the morning shift (p=0.028), but no significant differences in the outcome were found between morning and night shifts (p=0.163), evening and night shifts (p=0.256), day and night (p=0.637) or workdays and weekends (p=0.925). Conclusion: We found a significantly higher occurrence of CPR at 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m., at the beginning and end of the evening shift and a higher rate of post-CPR death in this shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication after cardiac surgery, and its occurrence is associated with a worse prognosis and increased mortality. The term cardiac surgery associated AKI (CSA AKI) is used to describe the entity. CSA AKI is independently associated with an increase in short term morbidity, costs of treatment, and long term mortality. In this study, we evaluated the frequency of CSA AKI in an intensive care unit for children undergoing cardiac surgery to examine the prevalence of CSA AKI and the risk factors contributing to it. Methods: This retrospective descriptive cross sectional study evaluated 73 patients admitted to a single center for cardiac surgery in 2022. Inpatient files were reviewed for patients who underwent surgical procedures for congenital heart disease (CHD) during 2022. Results: AKI occurred in 35.6% of children undergoing cardiac surgery. The majority of cases were infants or had cyanotic heart disease (42.5% and 25.8%, respectively). Conclusions: Almost one third of postcardiac surgery patients develop AKI. Monitoring for AKI postoperatively is especially necessary in infants and patients with cyanotic CHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Children with congenital heart diseases (CHDs) often require cardiac surgery, whose outcome depends on many preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative factors. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the factors associated with in-hospital mortality among patients undergoing pediatric heart surgery for CHDs. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included patients younger than l8 years who underwent cardiac surgery due to CHDs at the Children's Medical Center of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and were admitted to the open-heart surgery intensive care unit (OH-ICU) between March 2018 and March 2019. Patients with incomplete records were excluded. The collected data included age (months), weight (kg), type of congenital defect, duration of intensive care unit (ICU) stay, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) time, aortic cross-clamping (XCT) time, postoperative (day 1) platelet count and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and mortality. Results: This study included 275 CHD patients who underwent cardiac surgery. The mean age and weight were 32.54 ± 37.4 months and 11.01 ± 8.43 kg, respectively. Those who died were younger (P = 0.05) and had lower weights (P = 0.001). An inverse relationship existed between thrombocytopenia and mortality. The NLR was higher in those who survived (mean 4.08 vs. 2.87), while the deceased patients had an extended duration of hospitalization, longer CPB time, and longer XCT time. Conclusions: Younger age, lower body weight, lower NLR ratio, lower platelet count, longer intraoperative CPB time, and XCT time were not associated with increased in-hospital mortality following cardiac surgery for CHDs. The Risk Adjustment for Congenital Heart Surgery (RACHS-1) score was not significantly related to mortality. Also, CPB and XCT times were significantly longer in cyanotic than in non-cyanotic patients. Cyanotic patients also had significantly lower platelets than non-cyanotic patients after the operation. Large, multicenter studies are needed to further investigate the predictors of mortality following surgery for CHDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute Appendicitis (AA) is a common cause of emergency room visits among children. Non-specific symptoms of appendicitis may pose a major challenge. Due to the lack of access to imaging modalities in all facilities and its high cost, the evaluation of clinical symptoms and examination results is important in diagnosing acute appendicitis. Methods: This study is a retrospective cross-sectional study. Patients admitted to our emergency department and were suspected of having acute appendicitis by pediatric residents, and underwent an appendectomy during 2013-2018 were included. A checklist of the patients’ clinical signs and symptoms, and laboratory results and imaging findings completed from the records of these patients. Results: We reviewed the files of 300 patients with a clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis and having an appendectomy. Leukocytosis was found in 248 (82.7%), neutrophilia in 240 (80%) and CRP level equal or above 12 mg/L was observed in 107 (35.7%) patients. Ultrasound was performed in 283 patients (94.33%); of which 228 (80.56%) were reported as acute appendicitis. Abdominal CT scan was performed in 19 patients (6.33%); of which acute appendicitis was reported in 17 patients (89.47%). Conclusion: The results of this research showed that RLQ tenderness, and nausea/vomiting are the most common signs and symptoms, and leukocytosis is the most common laboratory finding in children with acute appendicitis. It can be suggested that relying just on the clinical presentation of AA (RLQ tenderness, fever, nausea/vomiting, anorexia and leukocytosis), can lead to the correct diagnosis of 78% of the suspected patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]