Is routine preoperative transthoracic echocardiography necessary in newborns with myelomeningocele?

OBJECTIVE: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is common in newborns with myelomeningocele. Echocardiography before neonatal back closure has been recommended. Its utility in the era of prenatal diagnosis is unclear. STUDY DESIGN: We reviewed all newborns with myelomeningocele evaluated by preoperative echocardiography at our institution over 11 years. RESULT: Seventy-six successive newborns were identified. Ninety-one percent were prenatally diagnosed with myelomeningocele. In all, 1% had critical, 12% critical or non-critical and 22% critical, non-critical or possible CHD. The single case of critical CHD was both prenatally diagnosed and clinically identifiable. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of CHD in newborns with myelomeningocele is increased compared with the general population; however, critical disease is uncommon. We propose preoperative echocardiography is unnecessary when the myelomeningocele is prenatally diagnosed, antenatal cardiac screening is complete and normal, and the newborn is clinically well.

Lower rates of emergency department injury visits among Latino children in the USA: no association with health insurance.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Latino children have lower rates of injury visits to emergency departments (EDs) than non-Latino white and African American children. This study tests the hypothesis that this difference reflects health insurance status. DESIGN: Secondary analysis. Patients/ SETTING: Children under 19 years of age visiting EDs in the USA, sampled in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey of EDs (NHAMCS-ED) from 1997 to 2001. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rates of ED injury visits; ED injury visit rates by race/ethnicity stratified by health insurance and adjusted for other covariates; subtypes of injury visits; and procedures and hospital admissions by race/ethnicity. RESULTS: Injuries accounted for >56 million, or 40.5%, of total ED visits among pediatric patients. Injury visits occurred at lower rates for Latino children (9.9 per 100 person years) than non-Latino white and African American children (16.2 and 18.3, respectively), although total ED visit rates were similar. Regardless of health insurance status, Latino children had lower rates of injury visits than non-Latino white and African American children. Latino children had lower rates of the three major subtypes of injury visits (sports, accidental falls, struck by/between objects). Latino children had similar rates of procedures and hospital admissions to non-Latino white children. CONCLUSIONS: Irrespective of their insurance status, Latino children have lower rates of ED injury visits in the USA than non-Latino white children. Possible reasons for this difference include different healthcare seeking behavior or different injury patterns by race/ethnicity, but not differences in health insurance status or barriers to accessing ED care.

The effects of exercise and subject age on pulsed Doppler measurements of left ventricular ejection in normal man.

Pulsed Doppler measurements of ascending aortic blood velocity and acceleration were made in a group of normal subjects on exercise. The aims of the study were: (1) to document the normal response to exercise and its variability at various ages as a baseline for future studies in abnormal subjects, and (2) to investigate the accuracy and reproducibility of these noninvasive measurements. Doppler measurements were related to oxygen consumption in normal subjects aged between 22 and 69 years, during a submaximal 4 min incremental cycle exercise protocol. Computer-aided ensemble averaging of digital spectral data was used to reduce the effects of noise and respiratory variations in the signals. The mean relationship between cardiac output (Q) and oxygen consumption (Vo2) was Q = 5.75 Vo2 + 4.22 1 min-1, r = 0.84 in subjects aged under 45 years, compared to Q = 6.16 Vo2 + 3.87 1 min-1, r = 0.65 in older subjects; this difference was not significant. These values are similar to those previously described in invasive studies. There was a wide range of individual responses especially in the older subjects. These inter-subject differences probably reflect true physiological differences between subjects rather than methodological errors because they were consistent on repeated testing in the same individual, similar differences occurred in heart-rate responses between individuals where Doppler errors do not apply, and inter-subject variability of similar magnitude was found in comparable studies using invasive methods. Peak velocity (PV) rose from 73 +/- 10 cm s-1 at a Vo2 of 0.4 1 min-1 to 101 +/- 11 cm s-1 at a Vo2 of 1.21 min-1 in subjects aged under 45 years; corresponding values in the older subjects were significantly lower at 48 +/- 12 and 64 +/- 10 cm s-1 respectively. Maximum acceleration was also significantly higher at rest and on exercise in subjects under 45 years compared to older subjects. Despite these differences, stroke volume and cardiac output responses showed no significant age dependence, suggesting that differences in ejection velocity are due to increasing aortic cross-sectional area with age. The wide variety of individual responses found suggests an underlying variability in the arteriovenous oxygen difference on exercise between subjects.