Symptomatic spinal cord compression caused by an epidural mass of extramedullary hematopoietic tissue in patients with β-thalassemia is a rare occurrence, that becomes exceptional in childhood and adolescence. The literature is not uniform about the optimal treatment of these patients and different modes of therapy have been proposed so far, including surgical excision or decompressing laminectomy followed by local irradiation and/or hypertransfusional regimens. We report the successful treatment of such a complication in an adolescent with homozygous β-thalassemia by surgery followed by repeated blood transfusions aimed at maintaining hematocrit at normal levels.

BACKGROUND:Damage-control laparotomy (DCL) has been used for traumatic and nontraumatic indications. We studied factors associated with delirium and outcome in this population. METHODS:We reviewed DCL patients at 15 centers for 2 years, including demographics, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), diagnosis, operations, and outcomes. We compared 30-day mortality; renal failure requiring dialysis; number of takebacks; hospital, ventilator, and intensive care unit (ICU) days; and delirium-free and coma-free proportion of the first 30 ICU days (DF/CF-ICU-30) between trauma (T) and nontrauma (NT) patients. We performed linear regression for DF/CF-ICU-30, including age, sex, CCI, achievement of primary fascial closure (PFC), small and large bowel resection, bowel discontinuity, abdominal vascular procedures, and trauma as covariates. We performed one-way analysis of variance for DF/CF-ICU-30 against traumatic brain injury severity as measured by Abbreviated Injury Scale for the head. RESULTS:Among 554 DCL patients (25.8% NT), NT patients were older (58.9 ± 15.8 vs. 39.7 ± 17.0 years, p < 0.001), more female (45.5% vs. 22.1%, p < 0.001), and had higher CCI (4.7 ± 3.3 vs. 1.1 ± 2.2, p < 0.001). The number of takebacks (1.7 ± 2.6 vs. 1.5 ± 1.2), time to first takeback (32.0 hours), duration of bowel discontinuity (47.0 hours), and time to PFC were similar (63.2 hours, achieved in 73.5%). Nontrauma and T patients had similar ventilator, ICU, and hospital days and mortality (31.0% NT, 29.8% T). Nontrauma patients had higher rates of renal failure requiring dialysis (36.6% vs. 14.1%, p < 0.001) and postoperative abdominal sepsis (40.1% vs. 17.1%, p < 0.001). Trauma and NT patients had similar number of hours of sedative (89.9 vs. 65.5 hours, p = 0.064) and opioid infusions (106.9 vs. 96.7 hours, p = 0.514), but T had lower DF/CF-ICU-30 (51.1% vs. 73.7%, p = 0.029), indicating more delirium. Linear regression analysis indicated that Twas associated with a 32.1% decrease (95% CI, 14.6%-49.5%; p < 0.001) in DF/CF-ICU-30, while achieving PFC was associated with a 25.1% increase (95% CI, 10.2%-40.1%; p = 0.001) in DF/CFICU-30. Increasing Abbreviated Injury Scale for the head was associated with decreased DF/CF-ICU-30 by analysis of variance (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION:Nontrauma patients had higher incidence of postoperative abdominal sepsis and need for dialysis, while T was independently associated with increased delirium, perhaps because of traumatic brain injury.

Trauma patients have a high risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) such that an increased enoxaparin dose is necessary to reduce related complications. Given that most trauma patients require an enoxaparin dose of at least 40 mg every 12 hours for VTE prophylaxis, we sought to identify which patients require enoxaparin 30 mg every 12 hours and hypothesized that both weight and low creatinine clearance (CrCl) would more likely determine enoxaparin dosing than age, body mass index (BMI), or body surface area (BSA). Single institution data were collected on trauma patients between August 2014 and February 2018 to compare trauma patients who required enoxaparin 30 mg to those who required ≥40 mg every 12 hours. Of the 245 patients included, 86 (35.1%) required enoxaparin at 30 mg to achieve the goal anti-factor Xa trough level. Factors associated with low dose enoxaparin were older age (59.6 vs. 46.2 years, P ≤ .01) and lower CrCl (81.5 mL/min vs. 93.7 mL/min, P ≤ .01). Weight, BSA, and BMI did not alter the dose of enoxaparin. A regression model determined that only CrCl predicted the need for low dose enoxaparin (adjusted odds ratio .982, 95% CI: .975-.990, P < .01). Although an initial dose of enoxaparin 40 mg is appropriate for most trauma patients, patients with low CrCl should receive 30 mg. Increased age and low weight were not associated with the need for a lower enoxaparin dose.

Purpose Damage control laparotomy (DCL) is used for both traumatic and non-traumatic indications. Failure to achieve primary fascial closure (PFC) in a timely fashion has been associated with complications including sepsis, fistula, and mortality. We sought to identify factors associated with time to PFC in a multicenter retrospective cohort. Methods We reviewed retrospective data from 15 centers in the EAST SLEEP-TIME registry, including age, comorbidities (Charlson Comorbidity Index [CCI]), small and large bowel resection, bowel discontinuity, vascular procedures, retained packs, number of re-laparotomies, net fluid balance after 24 h, trauma, and time to first takeback in 12-h increments to identify key factors associated with time to PFC. Results In total, 368 patients (71.2% trauma, of which 50.6% were penetrating, median ISS 25 [16, 34], with median Apache II score 15 [11,22] in non-trauma) were in the cohort. Of these, 92.9% of patients achieved PFC at 60.8 ± 72.0 h after 1.6 ± 1.2 re-laparotomies. Each additional re-laparotomy reduced the odds of PFC by 91.5% (95%CI 88.2-93.9%, p < 0.001). Time to first re-laparotomy was highly significant (p < 0.001) in terms of odds of achieving PFC, with no difference between 12 and 24 h to first re-laparotomy (ref), and decreases in odds of PFC of 78.4% (65.8-86.4%, p < 0.001) for first re-laparotomy after 24.1-36 h, 90.8% (84.7-94.4%, p < 0.001) for 36.1-48 h, and 98.1% (96.4-99.0%, p < 0.001) for > 48 h. Trauma patients had increased likelihood of PFC in two separate analyses (p = 0.022 and 0.002). Conclusion Time to re-laparotomy ≤ 24 h and minimizing number of re-laparotomies are highly predictive of rapid achievement of PFC in patients after trauma-and non-trauma DCL. Level of evidence 2B.

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