Current Opinions on Stress-Related Mucosal Disease Prevention in Canadian Pediatric Intensive Care Units.

OBJECTIVE: To describe current opinions about stress-related mucosal disease (SRMD) prevention in Canadian pediatric intensive care units (PICUs).

METHODS: A 22-question survey covering several aspects of SRMD was sent to all identified PICU attendings in Canada.

RESULTS: Sixty-eight percent of identified attendings completed the questionnaire. Thirty-eight percent were based in Quebec, 31% in Alberta, and 31% from other provinces. Most attendings (78%) had worked in a PICU for 6 years or more. When asked about risk factors for prescribing SRMD prevention drugs (more than 1 answer was accepted), the most popular answers were prior history of gastric ulceration/bleeding (33 respondents), coagulopathy (28 respondents), and major neurologic insult (18 respondents). Almost half of the attendings (48%) mentioned that they prescribe SRMD prophylaxis directly upon PICU admission to more than 25% of their patients. Forty-nine percent of respondents subjectively estimated that clinically significant upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB; defined as UGIB associated with either hypotension, transfusion within 24 hours of the event, or death) occurred in less than 1% of their patients. Fifty-seven respondents (93%) used ranitidine as first-line therapy (average dose: 4.1 mg/kg/day, mainly intravenously). As second-line therapy, 32 attendings (52%) used pantoprazole and 13 (21%) used omeprazole.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the paucity of guidelines on SRMD prevention and the low reported incidence of clinically significant UGIB, SRMD prevention is frequently used in Canadian PICUs. Ranitidine is the first-line drug used by most attendings.