[Experience in COVID-19 in hospitalized patients in pediatric critical units during pandemic period].

Objectives: To characterize the COVID-19 disease profile in Chilean children hospitalized in pediatric intensive care units (PICU) and to evaluate risk factors associated with severe COVID-19.

Patients And Method: A multicenter prospective cohort study with patients 0-18 years of age with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 hospitalized in PICU. Clinical, laboratory, imaging, and therapeutic variables were recorded.

Near-fatal cocaine intoxication in an infant with thrombotic microangiopathy associated with multiple organ failure.

Objective: To report a pediatric case of drug-induced thrombotic microangiopathy caused by cocaine.

Case Description: We report a nine-month-old patient who developed thrombotic microangiopathies after extreme cocaine intoxication, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome with hemodynamic dysfunction, anuric renal failure, liver failure, encephalopathy, and myocardial injury, corresponding phenotypically to thrombocytopenia-associated multiple organ failure. The patient received continuous venous hemofiltration and therapeutic plasma exchange, recovering satisfactorily.

[Childhood and COVID-19: The indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of children and adolescents].

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been overlooked in children and adolescents since many of the negative effects have been the result of containment and mitigation measures and will only be quantifiable in the medium and long term. Although the global response has been successful in reducing the lethality of the disease, the harmful effect on vulnerable populations, such as children and adolescents, is enormous and has been classified as catastrophic by international organizations. The pandemic has deeply affected the physical and mental health of children and adolescents, but also silently its negative effects extend across many areas such as schooling, familiar economy, child labor and food security.

Variability in care for children with severe acute asthma in Latin America.

Background: Care variability for children with severe acute asthma has been well documented in high-income countries, yet data from low- and middle-income regions are lacking. We sought to characterize the magnitude of practice variability in the care of Latin American children to identify opportunities for standardization of care.

Methods: A cross-sectional study performed through a retrospective analysis of contemporaneously collected data of children with severe acute asthma admitted to a center contributing to the LARed Network registry between May 2017 and May 2019.

Recommendations for the initial management of multisystem inflammatory syndrome temporally related to COVID-19, in children and adolescents.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome temporally related to COVID-19 in children and adolescents is a clinical presentation of SARS-CoV-2 infection. It shares some features with Kawasaki disease, toxic shock, sepsis, macrophage activation syndrome, and myocarditis. Few publications have addressed its initial management, which is similar to that proposed for septic shock.

Reduced PICU respiratory admissions during COVID-19.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic reached the Southern Hemisphere in the autumn of 2020, thus coinciding with its expected annual viral respiratory season. The potential impact of national strategies aimed at mitigating COVID-19 during the pandemic on the incidence of other critical viral lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) in children is unknown.

Methods: We analysed admission data for LRTIs from 22 paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) in four countries, part of a large international Latin American registry of children with acute respiratory failure (Red Colaborativa Pediátrica de Latinoamérica [LARed Network]).

Protecting children from iatrogenic harm during COVID19 pandemic.

Critical care management of patients with COVID-19 has been influenced by a mixture of public, media and societal pressure, as well as clinical and anecdotal observations from many prominent researchers and key opinion leaders. These factors may have affected the principles of evidence-based medicine and encouraged the widespread use of non-tested pharmacological and aggressive respiratory support therapies, even in intensive care units (ICUs). The COVID-19 pandemic has predominantly affected adult populations, while children appear to be relatively spared of severe disease.

[Idiopathic gastric rupture in toddler: case report].

Idiopathic gastric rupture is rare in children. Most of them occur in newborn. The authors report the case of a 2-year-old female toddler with no significant medical records.