ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Procalcitonin is a diagnostic marker useful to discern infections and non-infectious complications in heart surgeries. The aim is to describe risk factors related to nosocomial pneumonia and the predictive value of serum procalcitonin in pediatric patients undergoing heart surgery. METHODS: During a year a nested case-control study was carried out in a third level hospital. All patients undergoing open-heart surgery were followed and clinical data searching for pneumonia were registered every day. Blood samples for determination of procalcitonin were taken 48 hours after surgery. Those patients who developed pneumonia based on CDC clinical criteria were defined as cases; and controls were those patients who did not developed pneumonia. RESULTS: 188 patients underwent heart surgery (15 % developed pneumonia). Ninety-seven patients were submitted to open-heart surgery: 24 cases and 73 controls. Seventy-eight % of cases developed pneumonia between second and fifth day after surgery. The average time of surgery, extracorporial bypass, aortic cross-clamp, and mechanical ventilation were greater in control patients. The frequency of open sternotomy, reintubation, and surgical wound infections was greater in case patients. CONCLUSIONS: Some of the events related to heart surgery and their subsequent management are associated significantly to the development of hospital-acquired pneumonia.
Introducción: la procalcitonina (PCT) sirve para discriminar entre infección y complicaciones no infecciosas en cirugías cardiacas. Se busca describir el riesgo de neumonía nosocomial y la utilidad de la PCT en el diagnóstico de pacientes pediátricos sometidos a cirugía cardiovascular. Métodos: estudio de casos y controles anidados en una cohorte. Durante un año a todos los pacientes sometidos a cirugía cardiovascular se les hizo seguimiento diario de sus condiciones clínicas y determinación de PCT a las 48 horas de haber sido intervenidos quirúrgicamente. Se tomaron exclusivamente los pacientes sometidos a circulación extracorpórea: los casos desarrollaron neumonía según los criterios del CDC; los controles, no. Resultados: se intervinieron 188 pacientes. Desarrolló neumonía el 15 %. Fueron sometidos a circulación extracorpórea 97 pacientes, quedando 24 casos y 73 controles. El 78 % de los casos desarrolló proceso neumónico entre el segundo y el quinto día postquirúrgico. La media del tiempo quirúrgico (TQ), circulación extracorpórea (TCE), pinzamiento aórtico (TPA) y ventilación mecánica fueron mayores en los casos (p < 0.001). La frecuencia de esternotomía abierta, reintubación e infección de herida quirúrgica fue más alta en el grupo de casos (p < 0.001). Conclusiones: algunos eventos del proceso quirúrgico cardiovascular y su posterior manejo están significativamente asociados al desarrollo de neumonía nosocomial en niños.
Subject(s)
Cardiac Surgical Procedures , Cross Infection/etiology , Pneumonia/etiology , Postoperative Complications/etiology , Biomarkers/blood , Calcitonin/blood , Case-Control Studies , Child , Child, Preschool , Cross Infection/blood , Cross Infection/diagnosis , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Infant , Male , Multivariate Analysis , Pneumonia/blood , Pneumonia/diagnosis , Postoperative Complications/blood , Postoperative Complications/diagnosis , Prospective Studies , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
UNLABELLED: Vascular rings (VR) may produce extrinsic compression of trachea and/or esophagus. Diagnosis relies on nonspecific clinical data from resulting compression and image studies, mainly angiography, computed tomography, and cardiovascular MRI. Because of their low incidence, diagnosis is often missed. The role of bronchoscopy and esophagoscopy is controversial, but these procedures might establish for the first time the diagnostic suspicion of VR. This communication was aimed to determine to what extent endoscopic manifestations lead the clinician to suspect the presence of a VR and, moreover, to define their correlation with surgical findings. METHODS: Children with endoscopic diagnosis of VR submitted to surgery were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: Twenty patients fulfilled inclusion criteria. They were submitted to 19 bronchoscopies and 16 esophagoscopies, and in 60% cases they raised the first suspicion of VR. Diagnostic agreement of the type of VR between endoscopy and surgery was 85%. Bronchoscopy diagnosed 12 VR, and in 10 cases predicted the specific type of VR. Additional relevant findings were detected in nine patients (47.4%). Esophagoscopy diagnosed VR in 14 patients, predicted the specific type in 78.6% and detected all aberrant right subclavian artery cases. CONCLUSIONS: Initial suspicion of VR was raised by bronchoscopic and/or esophagoscopic findings in 60% cases. Endoscopy proved to be a valuable tool to anticipate the type of malformation and to disclose associated abnormalities.
