Tag Archives: Postoperative Complications

Patterns of Postoperative Delirium in Children. (Emrath)

Posted on by
Reply

Meyburg J, et al. Patterns of Postoperative Delirium in Children. Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2016 Oct 21. [Epub ahead of print]

OBJECTIVE: Intensive care delirium is a substantial problem in adults. Intensive care delirium is increasingly recognized in pediatrics in parallel with the development of specific scoring systems for children. However, little is known about the fluctuating course of intensive care delirium in children after surgery and possible implications on diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

DESIGN: Patients that needed treatment in the PICU following elective surgery were screened for intensive care delirium with the Cornell Assessment of Pediatric Delirium. When the patients were awake (Richmond Agitation and Sedation Score > -3), two trained investigators conducted the Cornell Assessment of Pediatric Delirium twice daily for five consecutive days.

PATIENTS: Ninety-three patients aged 0 to 17 years.

INTERVENTIONS: Eight hundred forty-five assessments completed.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Of the 845 scores, 230 were consistent with delirium (27.2%). Sixty-one patients (65.5%) were diagnosed with intensive care delirium. Half of these patients (n = 30; 32.2%) had a short-lasting delirium that resolved within 24 hours, and half (n = 31; 33.3%) had delirium of longer duration. Delirium could be clearly distinguished from sedation by analysis of individual test items of the Cornell Assessment of Pediatric Delirium. Time spent delirious had a measurable effect on outcome variables, including hospital length of stay.

CONCLUSION: Most postoperative PICU patients develop intensive care delirium. Some have a short-lasting course, which underlines the need for early screening. Our findings support the view of delirium as a continuum of acute neurocognitive disorder. Further research is needed to investigate prophylactic and treatment approaches for intensive care delirium.

Analysis of Unplanned Intensive Care Unit Admissions in Postoperative Pediatric Patients. (Sirignano)

Posted on by
Reply

Landry EK, et al. Analysis of Unplanned Intensive Care Unit Admissions in Postoperative Pediatric Patients. J Intensive Care Med. 2016 Aug 15. [Epub ahead of print]

BACKGROUND: Currently, there are only a few retrospective, single-institution studies that have addressed the prevalence and risk factors associated with unplanned admissions to the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) after surgery. Based on the limited amount of studies, it appears that airway and respiratory complications put a child at increased risk for unplanned ICU admission. A more extensive and diverse analysis of unplanned postoperative admissions to the ICU is needed to address risk factors that have yet to be revealed by the current literature.

AIM: To establish a rate of unplanned postoperative ICU admissions in pediatric patients using a large, multi-institution data set and to further characterize the associated risk factors.

METHODS: Data from the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry were analyzed. We recorded the overall risk of unplanned postoperative ICU admission in patients younger than 18 years and performed univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis to identify the associated patient, surgical, and anesthetic-related characteristics.

RESULTS: Of the 324 818 cases analyzed, 211 reported an unexpected ICU admission. There was an increased likelihood of unplanned postoperative ICU in infants (age <1 year) and children who were classified as American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classification of III or IV. Likewise, longer case duration and cases requiring general anesthesia were also associated with unplanned ICU admissions.

CONCLUSION: This study establishes a rate of unplanned ICU admission following surgery in the heterogeneous pediatric population. This is the first study to utilize such a large data set encompassing a wide range of practice environments to identify risk factors leading to unplanned postoperative ICU admissions. Our study revealed that patient, surgical, and anesthetic complexity each contributed to an increased number of unplanned ICU admissions in the pediatric population.

The association of serum vitamin D concentration with serious complications after noncardiac surgery. (Vats)

Posted on by
Reply

Turan A, Hesler BD, You J, Saager L, Grady M, Komatsu R, Kurz A, Sessler DI. The association of serum vitamin D concentration with serious complications after noncardiac surgery. Anesth Analg. 2014 Sep;119(3):603-12.

Full-text for Children’s and Emory users.

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D deficiency is a global health problem. Epidemiological studies demonstrate that vitamin D is both cardioprotective and neuroprotective. Vitamin D also plays a substantial role in innate and acquired immunity. Our goal was to evaluate the association of serum vitamin D concentration on serious postoperative complications and death in noncardiac surgical patients.

METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 3509 patients who had noncardiac surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus and had a serum vitamin D measurement. The relationship between serum vitamin D concentration and all-cause in-hospital mortality, in-hospital cardiovascular morbidity, and serious in-hospital infections was assessed as a common effect odds ratio (OR) by using a multivariate generalized estimating equation model with adjustment for demographic, medical history variables, and type and duration of surgery.

RESULTS: Higher vitamin D concentrations were associated with decreased odds of in-hospital mortality/morbidity (P = 0.003). There was a linear reduction of the corresponding common effect odds ratio (OR 0.93, 95% confidence interval, 0.88-0.97) for severe in-hospital outcomes for each 5 ng/mL increase in vitamin D concentration over the range from 4 to 44 ng/mL. In addition, we found that the odds versus patients with vitamin D <13 ng/mL (i.e., 1st quintile) were significantly lower in patients with vitamin D 13-20, 20-27, 27-36, and > 36 ng/mL (i.e., 2nd-5th quintiles); the corresponding estimated ORs were 0.65 (99% confidence interval, 0.43-0.98), 0.53 (0.35-0.80), 0.44 (0.28-0.70), and 0.49 (0.31-0.78), respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference among individual quintiles >13 ng/mL.

CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin D concentrations were associated with a composite of in-hospital death, serious infections, and serious cardiovascular events in patients recovering from noncardiac surgery. While causality cannot be determined from our retrospective analysis, the association suggests that a large randomized trial of preoperative vitamin D supplementation and postoperative outcomes is warranted.

Length of red cell unit storage and risk for delirium after cardiac surgery. (Pham)

Posted on by
Reply

Brown CH 4th, Grega M, Selnes OA, McKhann GM, Shah AS, LaFlam A, Savage WJ,
Frank SM, Hogue CW, Gottesman RF. Length of red cell unit storage and risk for
delirium after cardiac surgery. Anesth Analg. 2014 May 22. [Epub ahead of print]

BACKGROUND: The time that red cell units are stored before transfusion may be associated with postoperative complications, although the evidence is conflicting. However, the association between the length of red cell unit storage and postoperative delirium has not been explored. We hypothesized that the length of storage of transfused red cell units would be associated with delirium after cardiac surgery.

METHODS: We conducted a case-control study in which patients undergoing coronary artery bypass, valve, or ascending aorta surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass at Johns Hopkins from 2005 to 2011 were eligible for inclusion. Patients were excluded if they did not receive red cell units, received >4 red cell units during hospitalization, received any transfusion after the first postoperative day, or received red cell units that were not exclusively stored for ≤14 days or >14 days. Eighty-seven patients met transfusion-related inclusion criteria and developed postoperative delirium. Controls who did not develop delirium were selected from the same source population of eligible patients and were matched 1:1 based on age (± 5 years), 2- to 2.5-year band of date of surgery, and surgical procedure. For each patient, we calculated the average storage duration of all transfused red cell units. The primary outcome was odds of delirium in patients who were transfused red cell units with exclusive storage duration >14 days compared with that of ≤14 days. Secondary outcomes were odds of delirium with each increasing day of average red cell unit storage duration. We used conditional multivariable regression to test our hypotheses.

RESULTS: In conditional multivariable analysis of 87 case-control pairs, there was no difference in the odds of patients developing delirium if they were transfused red cell units with an exclusive storage age >14 days compared with that ≤14 days (odds ratio [OR] 1.83; 95% confidence interval, 0.73-4.58, P=0.20). Each additional day of average red cell unit storage beyond 14 days was associated with a 1.01- to 1.13-fold increase in the odds of postoperative delirium (OR, 1.07; P=0.03). Each additional day of average storage beyond 21 days was associated with a 1.02- to 1.23-fold increase in the odds of postoperative delirium (OR, 1.12; P=0.02).

CONCLUSIONS: Transfusion of red cell units that have been stored for >14 days is not associated with increased odds of delirium. However, each additional day of storage >14 or 21 days may be associated with increased odds of postoperative delirium in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. More research is needed to further characterize the association between delirium and storage duration of transfused red cell units.

Request article from Emily Lawson.