Emergency Pediatrics

Point-of-care ultrasound is being used more frequently in pediatric emergency medicine departments. It has become an important adjunct for clinical diagnoses and procedural guidance. We present a case series of 3 patients who presented to a pediatric emergency department and on chest radiographs had whiteout lung. Point-of-care ultrasound was able to differentiate fluid from consolidation, facilitating the appropriate investigations and interventions for these children.

Pediatric acute femur fractures are a relatively common major orthopedic injury seen in emergency departments. Providing adequate and safe analgesia is essential while patients await definitive management of these fractures. Opioid medications are typically used to treat fracture-associated pain but have well-known adverse effects including respiratory and central nervous system depression, pruritus, nausea, and allergic reactions. Dose titration of opioids in pediatric patients may be difficult and requires frequent nursing and physician reassessments...

BACKGROUND: Improved Childhood Immunizations Programs, especially the introduction of pneumococcal vaccination, better diagnostic methods and the importance of reduced antibiotic misuse, make this a critical time to increase knowledge on the etiology of pediatric pneumonia. Our main objective was to identify the contribution of various microbiological species that causes pneumonia in previously healthy children and adolescents in a population with high pneumococcal conjugate vaccine coverage...

PURPOSE: To evaluate whether C-reactive protein (CRP) level and ultrasound (US) results on admission could aid the diagnostic accuracy of Alvarado score. METHODS: A prospective study was performed on children <14 years admitted for suspected acute appendicitis. Patients were categorized into three groups based on the Alvarado score: group I: score 7-10, group II: score 5-6, group III: score 0-4. RESULTS: The difference between predictive values of Alvarado score alone and Alvarado score with CRP was not statically significant...

BACKGROUND: The benefits of treating children at home or in an ambulatory setting have been well documented. We aimed to describe the characteristics and evaluate the outcomes of children with moderate/severe cellulitis treated at home with intravenous (IV) ceftriaxone via direct referral from the Emergency Department to a hospital-in-the-home (HITH) program. METHODS: Patients aged 3 months to 18 years with moderate/severe cellulitis referred from a tertiary pediatric Emergency Department to HITH from September 2012 to January 2014 were prospectively identified...

A 4-year-old girl presented to the emergency department for evaluation of finger swelling after a dog bite. Point-of-care ultrasound was used to diagnose pyogenic flexor tenosynovitis of the digit after visualizing a fluid collection within the flexor tendon sheath. The patient underwent emergent incision and drainage of the digit with good outcome.

The application of emergency point-of-care ultrasound has been expanding in pediatric emergency medicine for a decade. In this case series, we describe the detection of papilledema in patients presenting to the pediatric emergency department using this technology and its potential impact on their clinical care.

BACKGROUND: Prompt and effective analgesia is a mainstay of emergency department (ED) medicine; however, it is often delayed in times of overcrowding and by the need to establish intravenous (IV) access. Thus, noninvasive analgesic administration by means of the intranasal route could potentially reduce time to analgesic administration by eliminating IV line insertion. METHODS: This retrospective study evaluated time from physician entry into patient's room to opioid administration after implementation of an intranasal fentanyl protocol...

BACKGROUND: Important therapeutic decisions are made based on the presence or absence of fever in patients with Kawasaki disease (KD), yet no standard method or threshold exists for temperature measurement during the diagnosis and treatment of these patients. We sought to compare surface and internal (rectal or oral) routes of temperature measurement for the detection of fever as a marker of treatment resistance. METHODS: From a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of infliximab as an adjunct to primary intravenous immunoglobulin treatment for acute KD, we collected concurrent (within 5 minutes) axillary and internal temperature measurements and performed receiver-operating characteristic and Bland-Altman analyses...

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a single dose of amoxicillin administered to a symptomatic child with confirmed strep throat might allow the child to return to school as little as 12 hours later. METHODS: We enrolled 111 evaluable children with sore throat plus a positive streptococcal rapid antigen detection test (RADT) as well as a positive result for group A Streptococci (GAS). After throat swab specimens were obtained, all participants received a single dose of amoxicillin (50 mg/kg)...