An 18-year, single centre, retrospective study of long-term neurological outcomes in paediatric submersion-related cardiac arrests.

Aim: Investigate long-term outcome in paediatric submersion-related cardiac arrests (CA). Methods: Children (age one day-17 years) were included if admitted to the Erasmus MC Sophia Children's Hospital, after drowning with CA, between 2002 and 2019. Primary outcome was survival with favourable neurological outcome, defined as a Paediatric Cerebral Performance Category (PCPC) score of 1-3 at longest available follow-up. Secondary outcome were age-appropriate neuropsychological assessments at longest available follow-up. Results: Upon hospital admission, 99 children were included (median age at time of CA 3.2 years [IQR 2.0-5.9] and 65% males). Forty children died in-hospital (no return of circulation (45%) or withdrawal of life sustaining therapies (55%)) and 4 children deceased after hospital discharge due to complications following the drowning-incident. Among survivors, with a median follow-up of 2.3 years [IQR 0.2-5.5], 47 children had favourable neurological outcome (i.e. PCPC 1-3) and 8 children unfavourable (unfavourable outcome group total n = 52, i.e. PCPC 4-5 or deceased). Twenty-six (47%) children participated in a neuropsychological assessment (median follow-up 4.0 years [IQR 2.3-8.7]). Compared with normative test data, participants obtained worse general (p = 0.008) and performance (p = 0.003) intelligence scores, processing speed (p = 0.002) and visual motor integration scores (p = 0.0012). Conclusions: Although overall outcome in survivors was favourable at longest available follow-up, significant deficits in neuropsychological assessments were found. This study underlines the need for a standardized long term follow-up program as standard of care in paediatric drowning with CA.

Sudden cardiac arrest in infants and children: proposal for a diagnostic workup to identify the etiology. An 18-year multicenter evaluation in the Netherlands.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) studies are often population-based, limited to sudden cardiac death, and excluding infants. To guide prevention opportunities, it is essential to be informed of pediatric SCA etiologies. Unfortunately, etiologies frequently remain unresolved. The objectives of this study were to determine paediatric SCA etiology, and to evaluate the extent of post-SCA investigations and to assess the performance of previous cardiac evaluation in detecting conditions predisposing to SCA. In a retrospective cohort (2002-2019), all children 0-18 years with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) referred to Erasmus MC Sophia Children's Hospital or the Amsterdam UMC (tertiary-care university hospitals), with cardiac or unresolved etiologies were eligible for inclusion. SCA etiologies, cardiac and family history and etiologic investigations in unresolved cases were assessed. The etiology of arrest could be determined in 52% of 172 cases. Predominant etiologies in children ≥ 1 year (n = 99) were primary arrhythmogenic disorders (34%), cardiomyopathies (22%) and unresolved (32%). Events in children < 1 year (n = 73) were largely unresolved (70%) or caused by cardiomyopathy (8%), congenital heart anomaly (8%) or myocarditis (7%). Of 83 children with unresolved etiology a family history was performed in 51%, an autopsy in 51% and genetic testing in 15%. Pre-existing cardiac conditions presumably causative for SCA were diagnosed in 9%, and remained unrecognized despite prior evaluation in 13%. CONCLUSION: SCA etiology remained unresolved in 83 of 172 cases (48%) and essential diagnostic investigations were often not performed. Over one-fifth of SCA patients underwent prior cardiac evaluation, which did not lead to recognition of a cardiac condition predisposing to SCA in all of them. The diagnostic post-SCA approach should be improved and the proposed standardized pediatric post-SCA diagnostics protocol may ensure a consistent and systematic evaluation process increasing the diagnostic yield. WHAT IS KNOWN: • Arrests in infants remain unresolved in most cases. In children > 1 year, predominant etiologies are primary arrhythmia disorders, cardiomyopathy and myocarditis. • Studies investigating sudden cardiac arrest are often limited to sudden cardiac death (SCD) in 1 to 40 year old persons, excluding infants and successfully resuscitated children. WHAT IS NEW: • In patients with unresolved SCA events, the diagnostic work up was often incompletely performed. • Over one fifth of victims had prior cardiac evaluation before the arrest, with either a diagnosed cardiac condition (9%) or an unrecognized cardiac condition (13%).

Physical activity types and atrial fibrillation risk in the middle-aged and elderly: The Rotterdam Study.

Background The association between physical activity and atrial fibrillation remains controversial. Physical activity has been associated with a higher and lower atrial fibrillation risk. These inconsistent results might be related to the type of physical activity. We aimed to investigate the association of total and types of physical activity, including walking, cycling, domestic work, gardening and sports, with atrial fibrillation. Design Prospective cohort study. Methods Our study was performed in the Rotterdam Study, a prospective population-based cohort. We included 7018 participants aged 55 years and older with information on physical activity between 1997-2001. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association of physical activity with atrial fibrillation risk. Models were adjusted for biological and behavioural risk factors and the remaining physical activity types. Physical activity was categorised in tertiles and the low group was used as reference. Results During 16.8 years of follow-up (median: 12.3 years, interquartile range: 8.7-15.9 years), 800 atrial fibrillation events occurred (11.4% of the study population). We observed no association between total physical activity and atrial fibrillation risk in any model. After adjustment for confounders, the hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval for the high physical activity category compared to the low physical activity category was: 0.71 (0.80-1.14) for total physical activity. We did not observe a significant association between any of the physical activity types with atrial fibrillation risk. Conclusion Our results suggest that physical activity is not associated with higher or lower risk of atrial fibrillation in older adults. Neither total physical activity nor any of the included physical activity types was associated with atrial fibrillation risk.