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Biomedical subjects

H Kilham

Publications and source records attributed to H Kilham.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Review of intubation in severe laryngotracheobronchitis.

Of 208 children who required relief of severe airway obstruction due to laryngotracheobronchitis by an artificial airway (nasotracheal intubation or tracheostomy) during a 10-year-period, 181 (87%) were intubated and later extubated. Twenty-seven children (13%) had tracheostomies performed. The tracheostomies were for severe subglottic narrowing precluding the passage of an adequate size endotracheal tube in 10 children, and for severe endotracheal tube trauma in 17 children. Five children developed acquired subglottic stenosis (2.4% of 208) and 1 of these has a retained tracheostomy. One child died of cardiac disease. The remaining 202 children had no long-term complications of laryngotracheobronchitis, intubation, or tracheostomy. It is concluded that nasotracheal intubation is a satisfactory artificial airway for laryngotracheobronchitis. Endoscopic evaluation in a selected group of these children will identify those with significant intubation trauma or severe subglottic narrowing in whom continued intubation may cause permanent subglottic damage. The low incidence of acquired subglottic stenosis in this series supports the practice of selective endoscopy and tracheostomy.

Airway Obstruction

Entrapment.

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Child

Outcome of children with hematologic malignancy who are admitted to an intensive care unit.

Sixty-four (48%) of 133 children with hematologic malignancy who were admitted to three pediatric ICUs died. Children who required management because of airway obstruction or after general anesthesia had the best outlook (mortality rate of 7% or less); those children who required major circulatory support or mechanical ventilation for hypoxemia did poorly (mortality rate of 84% or greater). Certain conditions in children with hematologic malignancy that require intensive care are associated with a mortality rate of approximately 75%. These include the following: suspected sepsis, interstitial pneumonitis, encephalopathy due to sepsis or hemorrhage. In children with these life-threatening conditions, therapy must be improved because at this stage, the patients do not benefit from admission to the ICU.

Anemia, Aplastic

Artificial ventilation in severe pertussis.

A retrospective review was conducted of all children admitted to our intensive care unit over eight years with a diagnosis of pertussis that had been proved on culture. Altogether 789 children were seen as outpatients and inpatients. Twenty four of these children were admitted to the intensive care unit, 13 of whom required ventilatory support; two of the ventilated patients died. Intubation and ventilation were usually started for appreciable apnoea. Most patients requiring support were less than 3 months of age and required intervention within the first 16 days of cough. For these patients ventilation was neither difficult nor prolonged. Coughing spasms were not a problem and intubation and ventilation appeared to attenuate the progress of the disease. The presence of severe bacterial pneumonia associated with difficult ventilation requiring neuromuscular paralysis indicated a poor prognosis. It is suggested that intubation and ventilation can be safely used in very severe pertussis infection and, because of their greater risk of hypoxic damage and death, it should not be reserved as a last resort in critically ill infants.

Apnea

Quinine poisoning in children.

The accidental ingestion of quinine by children causes significant morbidity and mortality. We have reviewed quinine poisoning as presented in the medical literature and our experience of paediatric quinine poisoning during the period from January 1975 to September 1986. The clinical features that were seen in our patients were similar to those that are described in larger series. In our series, 13 children were identified, of whom 11 children were aged one to two years. Ten children either remained asymptomatic or made a complete recovery. Two children had a persisting major deficit and one died. Once ingestion of quinine has occurred, absorption should be prevented by the emptying of the stomach with ipecacuanha or gastric lavage promptly and then by the administration of activated charcoal. Once toxicity develops, supportive therapy should be given, but there is no specific therapy to reduce toxicity or to enhance elimination. Physicians who prescribe quinine should be aware of the potential dangers to small children.

Adolescent

Severe upper airway obstruction.

This article describes management of newborn and older children with severe upper airway obstruction, that is, those needing or likely to need airway support for their intact survival. These children have more to gain from optimal care, and more to lose from any error than most other children requiring admission to a pediatric intensive care unit.

Airway Obstruction

Dicarboxylic aciduria: the response to fasting.

The urine of a child who presented with an episode of a disease resembling Reye's syndrome was found to contain large quantities of the dicarboxylic acids adipic and suberic acids, as well as the glycine conjugate of suberic acid, suberyl glycine. A variety of other dicarboxylic acids, both saturated and unsaturated, were also found in the urine at the time of the attack. It was found that the excretion of these unusual metabolites could be markedly increased by fasting for periods of greater than 10 h. These results indicate that the patient may have a defect in fatty acid oxidation which becomes clinically significant during periods of prolonged fasting.

Adipates

Running, walking, and hyperventilation causing asthma in children.

To examine further the relation between type of exercise, workload, ventilation, and exercise-induced asthma, we compared treadmill walking with treadmill running and treadmill running with isocapnic hyperventilation in separate studies in children and adolescents. Inspired air conditions were identical during each pair of tests. Walking and running with similar minute ventilation and oxygen consumption were followed by similar falls in peak expiratory flow rate as were running and hyperventilation with similar minute ventilation and end-tidal carbon dioxide tension. This study supports the concept that hyperventilation is a central mechanism in exercise-induced asthma.

Adolescent