Paediatric anaesthesia
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Aug 2017
Introduction of color-flow injection test to confirm intravascular location of peripherally placed intravenous catheters.
The incidence of infiltration and extravasation when using peripheral intravenous catheters is high in pediatric patients. Due to the lack of a gold standard test to confirm intravascular location of a peripherally placed intravenous catheter, we introduce a novel method, the color-flow injection test to assess the intravascular location of these catheters. For the color-flow injection test, 1 mL of normal saline was injected within 2 seconds in the distal intravenous catheter and changes in color-flow via ultrasonography were observed at the proximal draining veins. The primary objective of the study was to demonstrate feasibility of the color-flow injection test. ⋯ We were able to confirm intravascular location of peripheral intravenous catheters using the color-flow injection test in pediatric patients. The test can lead to early recognition of malfunctioning peripheral intravenous catheters and decrease rate of infiltration-extravasation injuries associated with their use.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Aug 2017
Benefits of an individualized perioperative plan for children with autism spectrum disorder.
Perioperative care for children with autism spectrum disorder may be challenging. Previous investigators recommend development of an individualized perioperative management plan with caregiver involvement. ⋯ The results suggest that an individualized plan is helpful in the perioperative management of children with autism spectrum disorder and that knowledge of autism spectrum disorder severity level may be helpful in determining the need for preoperative sedation.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Aug 2017
Preoperative colonization in pediatric cardiac surgery and its impact on postoperative infections.
Patients with congenital heart defects are frequently hospitalized before surgery. This exposes them to a high risk for pathogen colonization. There are limited data on colonization prevalence in the pediatric cardiac population, and limited data concerning its potential role in the risk of developing infections after cardiac surgery. ⋯ The results of our study suggest that the impact of preoperative colonization on outcome and postoperative infections may be negligible; larger series are required to clearly define this issue.