ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The quality of treatment for critically ill children varies widely at different hospitals. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of mortality in a pediatric emergency department (PED) at a tertiary children's hospital in Guangzhou, China and to investigate the risk factors associated with the mortality. METHODS: The mortality of pediatric patients at the hospital from 2011 to 2013 was retrospectively analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Altogether 466919 patients visited the PED during the period and 43925 of them were admitted for further observation. In 230 deaths, the ratio of boys to girls was 1.4:1, and their age ranged from 2 hours to 16 years (median, 5 months). The time from admission to death ranged from 0 to 216 hours (median, 1.5 hours). There were 92 (40％) patients who died within 24 hours after admission and 104 (45.2％) patients who died on arrival. The prominent causes of the deaths were respiratory diseases, neuromuscular disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and sepsis, most of which were ascribed to severe infection. Sixty-five deaths were associated with more than one concomitant problem. The top concomitant problems were congenital malformation, low gestational age, and severe birth asphyxia. CONCLUSIONS: In our center, 40％ of the patients in the PED died of fatal acute diseases, and pneumonia was the first leading cause of the deaths. Almost half of the deaths occurred on arrival and the rest were due to end-stage malignant diseases. This study emphasized the importance of prevention of birth deficits by reducing deaths in infants and children.
ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the relationship between children interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene(IL-1RN) polymorphisms and susceptibility to febrile seizures(FS).Methods Matching case-control study was carried out,blood samples from 52 patients with FS and 53 healthy children were collected.Genomic DNA was extracted and examined by polymerase chain reaction(PCR) amplification for judging IL-1RN genetype.Results Only Ⅰ/Ⅰ,Ⅰ/Ⅱ,Ⅱ/Ⅳ genetypes of IL-1RN were found in the surveyed Chinese population of Han nationality in Guangdong Province.No significant differences of these genotypes were observed in patients and controls.But the allele frequencise of Ⅰ,Ⅱand Ⅳ in patients were 95.2%,3.8% and 1.0%,respectively,while these frequencise in controls were 84.9%,10.4% and 4.7%,respectively.The allele frequency of IL-1RNⅠin patients was obviously higher than that in controls(P