Use of dexmedetomidine as adjunctive therapy for anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis.

Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis is a recently discovered disease that is more commonly being diagnosed in children. Patients often require intensive care and assisted ventilation due to agitation, abnormal movements, hypoventilation, seizures and autonomic instability. There is no consensus on which medicines are best suited to acutely treat this constellation of central nervous system symptoms.

High-frequency oscillatory ventilation in pediatric acute hypoxemic respiratory failure: disease-specific morbidity survival analysis.

Background: Multiple ventilatory strategies for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF) in children have been advocated, including high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV). Despite the frequent deployment of HFOV, randomized controlled trials remain elusive and currently there are no pediatric trials looking at its use. Our longitudinal study analyzed the predictive clinical outcome of HFOV in pediatric AHRF given disease-specific morbidity.

Sepsis-induced lung injury in rats increases alveolar epithelial vulnerability to stretch.

Objective: Previous in vitro models have shown that cellular deformation causes dose-dependent injury and death in healthy rat alveolar epithelial cells (AECs). We compared the viability of AECs from septic rats with those from nonseptic rats after 1 hr of cyclic equibiaxial stretch. We hypothesized that sepsis would increase stretch-induced cell death.