Background: Heart rate is the main determinant factor of the child's cardiac output in the first year of life. Thus, bradycardia decreases cardiac output leading to fatal cardiac arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, and even death. The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of bradycardia and its associated factors after induction of general anesthesia among pediatric patients operated at Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (HUCSH).
Methods: Prospective observational study was employed at HUCSH by using a systematic random sampling technique. Pediatric surgical patients less than 6 years old were included in the study. Data were entered into Epi data statistical software (version 4.6.0.) and exported to SPSS (version 25.0). Categorical data were analyzed using chi-square statistics, and continuous data were analyzed using Student's t-test. Bivariable logistic regression was used to select candidate variables for multivariable logistic regression.
Results: The prevalence of bradycardia among 205 pediatric patients included in this study was 19.5%. Preoperative risk of hypoxia, opioids premedication, inhalational induction (halothane), difficult intubation, intraoperative complications, and significant surgical blood loss were independently associated with bradycardia.
Conclusion: The prevalence of bradycardia after induction of general anesthesia was 19.5%. Preoperative risk of hypoxia, opioids premedication, inhalational induction (particularly with halothane), difficult intubation, intraoperative complications such as hypoxia, and significant blood loss were significantly associated with bradycardia.
Introduction: One of the most frequent neurological conditions in newborns is neonatal seizures, which may indicate severe neurological dysfunction. These seizures may have very subtle or very modest clinical indications because patterns like oscillatory (spike) trains begin with relatively low amplitude and gradually increase over time. This becomes very challenging and erroneous if clinical observation is the primary basis for identifying newborn seizures. In this study, a diagnosis system using deep convolutional neural networks is proposed to determine and classify the severity level of neonatal seizures using multichannel neonatal EEG data.
Methods: Datasets from publicly accessible online sources were used to compile clinical multichannel EEG datasets. Various preprocessing steps were taken, including the conversion of 2D time series data to equivalent waveform pictures. The proposed models have undergone training, and evaluations of their performance were conducted.
Results: The proposed CNN was used to perform binary classification with an accuracy of 92.6%, F1-score of 92.7%, specificity of 92.8%, and precision of 92.6%. To detect newborn seizures, this model is utilized. Using the proposed CNN model, multiclassification was performed with accuracy rates of 88.6%, specificity rates of 92.18%, F1-score rates of 85.61%, and precision rates of 88.9%. The results demonstrated that the suggested strategy can assist medical professionals in making accurate diagnoses close to healthcare institutions.
Conclusion: The developed system was capable of detecting neonatal seizures and has the potential to be used as a decision-making tool in resource-limited areas with a scarcity of expert neurologists.
Background: Epilepsy is an important cause of neurological morbidity in children and adolescents. Clinical parameters are the main diagnostic tools, especially in developing countries. Although cost-effective treatments for epilepsy are available, studies have shown that uncontrolled seizures can occur in many patients.
Objective: To assess clinical characteristics, treatment outcomes, and associated factors for controlled epilepsy among children with epilepsy who underwent follow-up at the Debre Markos Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, North-west Ethiopia from October 28, 2020, to April 28, 2021.
Methods: An institutional-based retrospective cohort study was conducted from October 28, 2020, to April 28, 2021. A total of 385 participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in the study. A pretested, structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire with a chart review was used to collect data. The data were entered into the Epi-data software version 4.4.2.1 and then exported to the Stata version 14 statistical package for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, treatment profiles, and treatment outcomes of patients with epilepsy. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify factors associated with treatment outcomes.
Results: The most frequent type of seizure among the 385 respondents was Generalized-tonic-clonic seizures (88.1%). The proximate cause of seizures was identified in 15% of patients, of whom 45 had a perinatal history (8.8%), head injury (3.6%), and CNS infection (2.3%). One-third of patients had poor seizure control. Caregiver relationship (father AOR=0.58; 95th CI:0.35,0.97) and poor adherence (AOR=2.97; 95th CI:1.82, 4.86) were significantly associated with treatment outcome.
Conclusion: One-third of children with epilepsy have poor seizure control. Poor adherence to treatment is implicated in poor control. Counseling caregivers on proper treatment and adherence to anti-epileptic medication is recommended to improve treatment outcome in children.
Background: Pig bronchus is rare and usually asymptomatic, but it may also cause significant respiratory symptoms such as recurrent pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, atelectasis, and difficult airway management in surgical and critical care patients. This study is aimed to examine a case of pig bronchus in which the patient presented with recurrent pneumonia in her early days of life.
Case report: A case report is the study design utilized in this assessment of a 40-days-old girl from a consanguineous marriage, who presented with cough and difficulty breathing for approximately a month. She was referred from a provincial hospital with no improvement in respiratory symptoms after three times hospitalization since birth. Radiological investigation revealed pig bronchus as the cause of recurrent pneumonia.
Conclusion: Pig bronchi, if not diagnosed on time, may result in severe lung infection that can even result in fatal disease. A high level of clinical suspicion is required to initiate an appropriate diagnostic workup. The gold standard modality for the diagnosis of pig bronchus is computed tomography (CT), ideally with multi-detector three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction.
Background: Unplanned extubating is the most common adverse event occurring in intensive care units (ICUs) and significantly increases morbidity and mortality in children, but there is limited current evidence on unplanned extubating in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the incidence, outcome, and determinants of unplanned extubating among children in the pediatric intensive care unit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2023.
Methods: A nested unmatched case-control design study was conducted at selected government hospitals in Addis Ababa from September 1, 2022, to April 30, 2023. A total of 198 intubated child patients (66 cases of unplanned extubating were nested with 132 controls of planned extubating) were followed up until they completed the full weaning process or based on hospital protocols. Data was collected through standardized data extraction, and the data was cleaned, entered into Epidata version 4.6, and exported to SPSS version 25.0 for further analysis. Binary and multiple logistic regression analyses were used to identify determinants of unplanned extubating, with an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of 99% confidence interval (CI) at p value <0.01.
Results: The study revealed a high mortality rate of 15.65% among intubated children in pediatric intensive care units, and the incidence of unplanned extubating was 7.2 per 100 days. This study identified determinants of unplanned extubating among patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit: agitated patients (AOR = 3.708; 99% CI: 1.401-9.81), working in night shift hours (AOR: 8.789; 99% CI: 2.37-32.58), use of plaster or roll bandages separately (AOR = 4.12; 99% CI: 1.215-13.96), A nurse-to-patient ration 1:2 (AOR: 6.65, 99% CI: 1.87-23.69), intermittent sedation (AOR, 3.717; 99% CI, 1.017-10.816), physically restrained (AOR = 3.717; 99% CI: 1.02-13.54), and death outcome (AOR = 14.86, 99% CI: 3. 24-68.097), respectively.
Conclusion and recommendations: This study found that the incidence and mortality rate of unplanned extubating were high, with identified determinants increasing the risk of unplanned extubating among patients admitted to pediatric intensive care unit. Therefore, policymakers and health planners should design further protocols and algorithms for the management of pediatric endotracheal intubation (ETT) quality of patient outcomes and to prevent unplanned extubating in a resource limited set up.