Pediatric DKA

Author: Dr. Trevor Landas I’m not sure about y’all but I honestly have not seen too many pediatric DKA patients. I’m assuming it probably has to do with thorough screening, but it’s important to know how it is managed because it has a couple nuances that are different than the treatment of adult patients. Definition

5 Minute Journal: Belly Babies: Pediatric Blunt Trauma Decisions

Author: Dr. Shayna Adams Background: The paper validates a prediction rule that aims to identify kiddos with intra-abdominal injuries after blunt trauma. The prediction rule was derived from a previous study that looked at about a thousand children and found six factors to be related to intra-abdominal injury. In order to trigger the prediction rule, the kiddo

Pediatric Urologic Emergencies

In this blog, we’re going to dive into the topic of  pediatric urologic emergencies. We’re going to focus on some of the more uncommon emergencies such as:  phimosis, paraphimosis, priapism, entrapment injuries, testicular torsion, epididymitis, varicocele, and hydrocele. It’s important to note that UTI’s and Kidney stones are also common in peds, and often require additional work-up as often indicate abnormal anatomy or disease processes.

The Limping Child

Background

Most children begin walking between 12 and 18 months. Their initial gait starts broad-based, often with short asymmetric steps. At faster speeds, they often develop foot slapping and asymmetric arm swinging. By ages 3-5 years-old, children start to walk with more fluidity and symmetric strides. By ages 5-7 years-old, their gait begins to resemble the same pattern as an adult.

5 Minute Journal: PECARN Head CT Rule

PECARN Head CT Rule

Dr. Brian Yu did a great 5-minute summary on the PECARN head CT Rule that was published in 2009. It’s an ambitious study that involved 25 emergency departments and included 42,412 patients under the age of 18 years who presented with blunt head trauma. It further risk stratified these patients into 2 major cohorts of <2 years of age and 2-18 years of age. It excluded patients with trivial injury, penetrating trauma, neurologic history, and those with prior imaging. The outcomes this study aimed for were clinically important findings including death, need for neurosurgical intervention, intubation >24 hours, and admission >2 nights. 

5 Minute Journal: Kocher Criteria for Septic Arthritis

This week’s 5-minute Journal Article discussion covered

“Validation of a Clinical Prediction Rule for the Differentiation Between Septic Arthritis and Transient Synovitis of the Hip in Children” by Kocher et al.

 

Why is it important to differentiate between septic arthritis and transient synovitis in pediatric patients? Because both diseases can present similarly with acute onset of pain, fever, limp or inability to bear weight and patients holding their hip in the flexed, abducted, externally rotated (FABER) position. The difference is transient synovitis is exactly that, transient, while septic arthritis can lead to permanent joint damage and disability if not treated aggressively with surgical intervention and IV antibiotics.

PALS 2010

Kleinman et al, “Part 14: Pediatric Advanced Resuscitation.” Circulation. November 2, 2010. (Supplement). It’s available free online, go grab a copy and enjoy with a nice cup of coffee. Introduction Airway Monitoring and Access Drugs (part 1) Drugs (part 2) Pulseless Arrest Bradycardias Tachycardias