OBJECTIVES To describe the clinical features of patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) attributable to influenza A pH1N1 virus and compare them with those admitted with LRTI due to other viral pathogens. DESIGN Retrospective, observational, comparative study. SETTING PICU in a university-affiliated, tertiary-care, pe...

BACKGROUND Despite intense interest in the links between the microbiome and human health, little has been written about dysbiosis among ICU patients. We characterized microbial diversity in samples from 37 children in a pediatric ICU (PICU). Standard measures of alpha and beta diversity were calculated, and results were compared with data from adult and pediatric reference datasets. RESULTS B...

Monthly doses of palivizumab, an RSV-specific monoclonal antibody, reduce RSV-related hospitalizations (RSVH) in high-risk children; however, no specific palivizumab level has been correlated with disease severity in humans. A post hoc analysis of a previous randomized, placebo-controlled trial evaluated the relationship between serum palivizumab level at the time of RSVH and disease severity. ...

BACKGROUND Two sets of diagnostic criteria of paediatric multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) were published by Proulx in 1996 and by Goldstein in 2005. We hypothesized that this changes the epidemiology of MODS. Thus, we determined the epidemiology of MODS, according to these two sets of diagnostic criteria, we studied the intra- and inter-observer reproducibility of each set of diagnost...

INTRODUCTION The first steps in goal-directed therapy for sepsis are early diagnosis followed by appropriate triage. These steps are usually left to the physician's judgment, as there is no accepted biomarker available. We aimed to determine biomarker phenotypes that differentiate children with sepsis who require intensive care from those who do not. METHODS We conducted a prospective, observ...

Although there is a growing body of literature about the medical problems which arise in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), rather little has been written about psychiatric issues characteristic of the critical care setting for children. This article will describe the PICU as a community made up of several sub-groups, the various psychosocial stresses, the reactions to stresses, and the in...

Anaphylaxis is rarely seen in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), and there is not a single entry for 'anaphylaxis' in the index of a recently published paediatric ICU textbook. There are two potential scenarios where anaphylaxis could be encountered in the PICU: (i) a child who is admitted for intensive care after anaphylaxis; or (ii) a patient who develops anaphylaxis to therapy while ...

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has placed increasing demands on limited paediatric intensive care services in developing countries. The decision to admit HIV infected children with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) into the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) has to be made on the best available evidence of outcome and the ethical principles guiding appropriate use of scarce resources. The difficul...

AIM To describe the morbimortality associated to the development of acute kidney injury (AKI) defined by the pediatric adaptation of the RIFLE criteria in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). DESIGN A retrospective cohort study was carried out. SETTING Children admitted to a PICU in a tertiary care hospital. Patients or participants A total of 320 children admitted to a tertiary care hos...

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to analyse the evolution, over a12-year period, of the use of non-invasive (NIV) and invasive ventilation (IV) in children admitted to a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) due to acute bronchiolitis. PATIENTS AND METHODS A retrospective observational study was performed including all children who were admitted to the PICU requiring NIV or IV between 2001...