Cardiovascular pharmacological therapy in children--a review. Part 1: Use of inotropic agents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W C Yip.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
In a series of 132 patients who had undergone surgical treatment for carcinoma of the esophagus and upper part of the stomach, anastomotic leakage occurred in 29. We retrospectively studied the factors that could influence the healing of the fistulas in the management of this condition. Despite adequate supportive treatment, including total parenteral nutrition, five patients died from unrelenting infection. Fifteen fistulas closed spontaneously after an average of about four weeks of conservative treatment and full nutritional therapy. Those patients who had persistent fistulas after similar treatment were found to have either residual tumor after palliative operation or preoperative serum albumin levels that were lower than those of the other group. Prolonged conservative treatment for persistent fistulas may not be warranted if such risk factors are identified, and surgical repair should be considered.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
In a series of 102 patients with cancer of the oesophagus or gastric cardia in whom surgery had been performed, postoperative respiratory infection, respiratory failure and mortality secondary to respiratory complication occurred in 55.8, 34.3 and 21.6 per cent respectively. The incidence of complications correlated well with the pre-operative peak expiratory flow rate when it was less than 65 per cent of the predicted normal value. However, the predictive ability of peak expiratory flow rate was much less than the patient's age, pre-operative serum albumin level, pre-operative Pa,O2 and number of surgical wounds when all risk factors were considered. Significantly more complications occurred when the patient was greater than 65 years old, Pa,O2 was less than 10 kPa, serum albumin was less than 39 g/l and when the operation required three incisions. These findings may serve as guidelines for identification of high-risk patients in the future.
Definitive surgical procedures were performed on 46 patients with strictures of the major bile ducts: dilatation of strictures was undertaken in 6 patients, hepatotomy and plastic repair in 2, biliary-enteric anastomosis in 18, and liver resection with or without drainage for the rest of the biliary tree in 20 patients. The overall operative morbidity was 21.7 per cent. Two patients died within 30 days of operation. One patient died of septicaemia after emergency dilatation of stricture while another died of sepsis from a leakage after hepatotomy and plastic repair. The median follow-up for the 44 patients who survived the operation was 43 months. All strictures reformed after dilatation within 2 months. Acute cholangitis occurred in six patients, two after dilatation of strictures (with documented recurrent stone formation in one), two after biliary-enteric anastomosis and two after liver resection. Thus, good clinical results were obtained in 38 out of 44 patients (86.4 per cent).
A prospective study to determine the safety and effectiveness of choledochoscopy in acute cholangitis and acute suppurative cholangitis due to common bile duct stones was conducted on 70 patients. Common bile duct pressures determined on the first 20 patients showed that choledochoscopy was unlikely to cause cholangiovenous reflux. Laboratory and clinical parameters revealed that choledochoscopy did not cause septicemia, worsen cholangitis, or provoke acute pancreatitis. There was no iatrogenic injury during choledochoscopy, and the choledochoscopic views were minimally affected by cholangitis. Choledochoscopy detected overlooked stones after conventional methods of exploration of common bile ducts in 14.3% of patients and it helped to remove impacted stones in 2.9% of patients. As a result, the incidence of retained stones after choledochoscopy was 1.4%. Time spent in choledochoscopy was short, and the total postoperative septic complication rate was only 10%. There was no operative mortality. It is concluded that choledochoscopy is safe and effective in cholangitis.
A 10 year retrospective analysis of the clinical features and survival of 24 Singapore children with systemic lupus erythematosus was made. The female to male sex ratio was 11:1. The median age at diagnosis was 9.3 years (range: 3.5-17.6 years), and the median duration of follow-up was 3.6 years (range: 3 months-10 years). The common modes of presentation were prolonged fever and malar rash (both 46%). Renal involvement (71%) was frequent. There were six deaths, three from chronic renal failure, two from infection, and one from carditis. The overall survival at 5 years was 0.800 (s.e.m. = 0.090), and at 10 years 0.698 (s.e.m. = 0.103). The survival for lupus nephritis was 0.727 at 5 years (s.e.m. = 0.116), and 0.586 at 10 years (s.e.m. = 0.130). Although the 5 year survival rate is comparable with other series, there were more deaths after the first 5 years, and morbidity from the disease as well as from therapy was considerable.
A prospective study was conducted on 344 children aged from 3 months to 16 years with acute appendicitis. Most children presented with typical features of acute appendicitis (70%) or peritonitis (28%). Atypical presentation was uncommon and occurred only in seven young children, masquerading as intestinal obstruction, gastroenteritis or urinary tract infection. Prolonged delay in surgery was associated with a rise in incidence of late appendicitis (gangrenous and perforated appendicitis). This rise was especially marked 37 h after onset of symptoms. The main causes of delay were inability of the parents and primary care medical practitioners to recognize the disease early. Surgeons contributed very little to the delay. High risk factors for postappendectomy sepsis were young children under 6 years old, late appendicitis, obese patients, inferior systemic antibiotic regimes and inexperienced surgeons. Young children had high postoperative sepsis mainly because of the high incidence of late appendicitis due to their inability to express their symptoms properly. They were not especially prone to postappendectomy sepsis; they had the same degree of appendicitis compared with older children. Measures to decrease the postappendectomy morbidity are suggested.
In the past six years, 37 patients with gastrointestinal bleeding of obscure origin had their bleeding sites localised preoperatively or intraoperatively. Preoperative investigations followed a regime consisting of endoscopy, barium meal and follow through, small bowel enema, 99mTc pertechnetate scan, 99mTc-labelled red blood cell scan and selective coeliac and mesenteric angiography. Bleeding lesions were localised preoperatively in 36 patients. In one patient, diagnostic laparotomy had to be carried out immediately before any investigation because the bleeding was severe. At operation, angiosarcoma of ileum was found. Unless preoperative investigations showed the lesions to be in anatomically fixed organs like the duodenum or colon, the lesions had still to be found at operation. Palpation and transillumination detected the lesion intraoperatively in 21 patients while only some lesions were found in three patients with multiple lesions. Sigmoidoscopy through enterotomies was required in one patient. Intraoperative enteroscopy was done for small lesions not found grossly at operation in nine patients, to detect additional lesions in three patients or to rule out suspicious lesion shown on preoperative tests in one patient. In another patient with diffuse lymphoma of small bowel with bleeding from only a small segment of jejunum, injection of methylene blue intraoperatively through a previously placed angiographic catheter stained the bleeding segment of jejunum blue. This segment was identified easily and resected. These preoperative and intraoperative localisation procedures were simple and effective and we recommend them to be used more freely.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The efficacy of verapamil in the conversion of 47 episodes of supraventricular tachycardia in 22 children was evaluated. The age of the patients ranged from 15 days to 10 years. Tachycardia was the main mode of presentation. Ten out of 22 children had viral infections. Two patients developed mild cardiac failure. Six patients had underlying cardiac abnormalities. Forty-four out of 47 episodes of supraventricular tachycardia were converted to sinus rhythm by a single dose of verapamil (0.11 +/- 0.08 mg/kg). No significant side-effects were observed. Intravenous verapamil is an effective and safe drug for the conversion of supraventricular tachycardia in children.