Association between cuffed tracheal tube use and reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia and conditions after elective cardiac surgery in infants and young children.

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a serious complication in children after cardiac surgery that may result from micro-aspiration. However, the current recommendation to use cuffed tracheal tubes (TTs) versus uncuffed TTs in children is still uncertain. Our main aim was to evaluate the incidence of VAP, ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis (VAT) and ventilator-associated conditions (VAC) in children up to five years old who underwent elective cardiac surgery.

A Community-Based Model to the COVID-19 Humanitarian Crisis.

A multidisciplinary group, mainly from Bergamo region - the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in Italy on march 2020- has developed concept of creating intermediate care facilities and proposes a three-tier model of community-based care, with the goal of reducing hospital admissions, contagion and mortality related to hospital overloading and optimizing human resources.

Addressing Key Clinical Care and Clinical Research Needs in Severe Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: Perspectives From a Focused International Conference.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children and adolescents. Survivors of severe TBI are more prone to functional deficits, resulting in poorer school performance, poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and increased risk of mental health problems. Critical gaps in knowledge of pathophysiological differences between children and adults concerning TBI outcomes, the paucity of pediatric trials and prognostic models and the uncertain extrapolation of adult data to pediatrics pose significant challenges and demand global efforts.

Pressure support ventilation, sigh adjunct to pressure support ventilation, and neurally adjusted ventilatory assist in infants after cardiac surgery: A physiologic crossover randomized study.

Objectives: We sought to compare gas exchange, respiratory mechanics, and asynchronies during pressure support ventilation (PSV), sigh adjunct to PSV (PSV SIGH), and neurally adjusted ventilatory assist (NAVA) in hypoxemic infants after cardiac surgery.

Design: Prospective, single-center, crossover, randomized physiologic study.

Setting: Tertiary-care pediatric intensive care unit.

Sevoflurane improves respiratory mechanics and gas exchange in a case series of infants with severe bronchiolitis-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome.

This report describes the successful use of a new intervention to improve respiratory mechanics and gas exchange in a relatively homogeneous group of infants with severe bronchiolitis-induced PARDS after failure of conventional treatment. These results may open a new interesting area of research and management for PARDS patients.