Key Points
In children undergoing tonsillectomy, low VWF levels did not predict surgical bleeding in the absence of major bleeding history. Children have lower VWF levels than adults and these lower levels do not appear to be associated with bleeding.
Background
Beginning June 2019, Children's Wisconsin was the first hospital to identify a cohort of adolescent patients hospitalized with symptoms likely associated with e‐cigarette use. Our report adds to the growing literature describing the radiographic, gross and cytopathologic bronchoscopic findings, and short‐term lung function outcomes in this cohort of adolescents with e‐cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury (EVALI).
Methods
We present 15 adolescents hospitalized from June to September, 2019 with confirmed EVALI. We abstracted data from inpatient hospitalization and first outpatient pulmonary clinic visit.
Results
There were 15 patients (11 male, 12 White) with a mean age of 17.1 years. All patients presented with subacute pulmonary, gastrointestinal and constitutional complaints. Diagnostic workup was guided by the Centers for Disease Control criteria for confirmed EVALI case surveillance. Flexible bronchoscopy was performed in 13/15 patients with 10/13 demonstrating gross pathologic abnormalities. Seven of 15 patients required intensive care and 2 met criteria for pediatric Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Patients had dramatic improvement with systemic glucocorticoid therapy and 14/15 were discharged on room air. Eleven patients were seen as outpatients. Despite 11/11 patients reporting resolved or improved symptoms, 7/11 had abnormalities on pulmonary function testing. We initiated inhaled corticosteroids for 5/11 patients and 4/11 patients remained on their corticosteroid wean.
Conclusions and Relevance
We report short‐term outcomes of the first cohort of adolescent patients hospitalized with EVALI. An association is observed between clinical improvement and treatment with systemic corticosteroids. However, residual airway reactivity or diffusion abnormalities persisted when patients were re‐evaluated in the short‐term period (mean 4.5 weeks).
IntroductionTraditional risk scoring prediction models for trauma use either anatomically based estimations of injury or presenting vital signs. Markers of organ dysfunction may provide additional prognostic capability to these models. The objective of this study was to evaluate if urinary biomarkers are associated with poor outcomes, including death and the need for renal replacement therapy.MethodsWe conducted a prospective, observational study in United States Military personnel with traumatic injury admitted to the intensive care unit at a combat support hospital in Afghanistan.ResultsEighty nine patients with urine samples drawn at admission to the intensive care unit were studied. Twelve patients subsequently died or needed renal replacement therapy. Median admission levels of urinary cystatin C (CyC), interleukin 18 (IL-18), L-type fatty acid binding protein (LFABP) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) were significantly higher in patients that developed the combined outcome of death or need for renal replacement therapy. Median admission levels of kidney injury molecule-1 were not associated with the combined outcome. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves for the combined outcome were 0.815, 0.682, 0.842 and 0.820 for CyC, IL-18, LFABP and NGAL, respectively. Multivariable regression adjusted for injury severity score, revealed CyC (OR 1.97, 95 % confidence interval 1.26-3.10, p = 0.003), LFABP (OR 1.92, 95 % confidence interval 1.24-2.99, p = 0.004) and NGAL (OR 1.80, 95 % confidence interval 1.21-2.66, p = 0.004) to be significantly associated with the composite outcome.ConclusionsUrinary biomarker levels at the time of admission are associated with death or need for renal replacement therapy. Larger multicenter studies will be required to determine how urinary biomarkers can best be used in future prediction models.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13054-015-0965-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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