IMPORTANCE: Nonoperative management with antibiotics alone has the potential to treat uncomplicated pediatric appendicitis with fewer disability days than surgery. OBJECTIVE: To determine the success ...rate of nonoperative management and compare differences in treatment-related disability, satisfaction, health-related quality of life, and complications between nonoperative management and surgery in children with uncomplicated appendicitis. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Multi-institutional nonrandomized controlled intervention study of 1068 children aged 7 through 17 years with uncomplicated appendicitis treated at 10 tertiary children’s hospitals across 7 US states between May 2015 and October 2018 with 1-year follow-up through October 2019. Of the 1209 eligible patients approached, 1068 enrolled in the study. INTERVENTIONS: Patient and family selection of nonoperative management with antibiotics alone (nonoperative group, n = 370) or urgent (≤12 hours of admission) laparoscopic appendectomy (surgery group, n = 698). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The 2 primary outcomes assessed at 1 year were disability days, defined as the total number of days the child was not able to participate in all of his/her normal activities secondary to appendicitis-related care (expected difference, 5 days), and success rate of nonoperative management, defined as the proportion of patients initially managed nonoperatively who did not undergo appendectomy by 1 year (lowest acceptable success rate, ≥70%). Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to adjust for differences between treatment groups for all outcome assessments. RESULTS: Among 1068 patients who were enrolled (median age, 12.4 years; 38% girls), 370 (35%) chose nonoperative management and 698 (65%) chose surgery. A total of 806 (75%) had complete follow-up: 284 (77%) in the nonoperative group; 522 (75%) in the surgery group. Patients in the nonoperative group were more often younger (median age, 12.3 years vs 12.5 years), Black (9.6% vs 4.9%) or other race (14.6% vs 8.7%), had caregivers with a bachelor’s degree (29.8% vs 23.5%), and underwent diagnostic ultrasound (79.7% vs 74.5%). After IPTW, the success rate of nonoperative management at 1 year was 67.1% (96% CI, 61.5%-72.31%; P = .86). Nonoperative management was associated with significantly fewer patient disability days at 1 year than did surgery (adjusted mean, 6.6 vs 10.9 days; mean difference, −4.3 days (99% CI, −6.17 to −2.43; P < .001). Of 16 other prespecified secondary end points, 10 showed no significant difference. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE: Among children with uncomplicated appendicitis, an initial nonoperative management strategy with antibiotics alone had a success rate of 67.1% and, compared with urgent surgery, was associated with statistically significantly fewer disability days at 1 year. However, there was substantial loss to follow-up, the comparison with the prespecified threshold for an acceptable success rate of nonoperative management was not statistically significant, and the hypothesized difference in disability days was not met. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02271932
Outcome studies of tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) and/or esophageal atresia (EA) are limited to retrospective chart reviews. This study surveyed TEF/EA patients/parents engaged in social media ...communities to determine long-term outcomes.
A 50-point survey was designed to study presentation, interventions, and ongoing symptoms after repair in patients with TEF/EA. It was validated using a test population and made available on TEF/EA online communities.
In this study, 445 subjects completed the survey during a 2-month period. Mean age of patients when surveyed was 8.7 years (0-61 years) and 56% were male. Eighty-nine percent of surveys were completed by the parent of the patient. Sixty-two percent of patients underwent repair in the first 7 days of life. Standard open repair was most common (56%), followed by primary esophageal replacement (13%) and thoracoscopic repair (13%). Out of 405, 106 (26%) patients had postoperative leak. Postoperative leak was least likely in primary esophageal replacement (18%) and standard open repair (19%). Leak occurred in 32% of patients who had thoracoscopic repair; 31% (128/413) reported long-gap atresia, which was significantly associated with increased risk of postoperative leak (54/128, 42%) when compared with standard short-gap atresia (odds ratio, 3.5;
= 0.001). Out of 409, 221 (54%) patients reported dysphagia after repair, with only 77/221 (34.8%) reporting resolution by age 5. Out of 381, 290 (76%) patients reported symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). There was no difference in dysphagia rates or GERD symptoms based on type of initial repair. Antireflux surgery was required in 63/290, 22% of patients with GERD (15% of all patients) and 27% of these patients who had surgery required more than one procedure antireflux procedure. The most common was Nissen fundoplication (73%), followed by partial wrap (14%). Reflux recurred in 32% of patients after antireflux surgery.
TEF/EA patients have long-term dysphagia and GERD that may be under reported. Retrospective studies of outcomes after TEF/EA repair may underestimate long-term esophageal dysmotility, dysphagia, GERD, and strictures that occur regardless of the type of repair and adversely affect quality of life. Fifteen percent of all TEF/EA patients surveyed required an antireflux procedure during childhood, and more than one-quarter of those required repeat surgery. These data demonstrate the need for long-term follow-up as pediatric patients transition to adult care.
Hospital care is one of the fundamental components in any healthcare delivery system. Within hospital care, surgical procedures account for the largest share of the revenue generated. Traditionally, ...the operating room (OR) capacity is viewed as a major constraint limiting a hospital's ability to increase the number of surgical procedures and the accompanying revenues. However, each procedure consumes not only the OR capacity but also, the hospital bed capacity. In “Managing Portfolio of Elective Surgical Procedures: A Multidimensional Inverse Newsvendor Problem,” Hessam Bavafa, Charles M. Leys, Lerzan Örmeci, and Sergei Savin investigate the effects of the interaction between the two resources (i.e., OR and recovery beds) on the optimal number of elective surgical procedures to be performed daily. They evaluate the performance of the “front-end” approach, which considers only the OR capacity, in different settings. Moreover, they show how the variability of the resource utilization by surgical procedures affects the optimal elective portfolio.
We consider the problem of allocating daily hospital service capacity among several types of elective surgical procedures in the presence of random numbers of urgent procedures described by arbitrary finite support distributions. Our focus is on the interaction between two major constraining hospital resources: operating room (OR) and recovery bed capacity. In our model, each type of surgical procedure has an associated revenue, stochastic procedure duration, and stochastic length of stay (LOS). We consider arbitrary distributions of procedure and LOS durations and derive a two-moment approximation based on the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) for the total procedure duration and the daily number of occupied beds for a given portfolio of procedures. An important novel element of our model is accounting for correlation among the surgical and patient LOS durations for the procedures performed by the same surgical team. We treat the available OR and recovery bed capacity as nominal, allowing them to be exceeded at a cost. The resulting model is a novel, multidimensional variant of the inverse newsvendor problem, where multiple demand types compete for multiple types of service capacity. We characterize the optimal number of elective procedures for single-specialty hospitals and derive an optimality bound for a “front-end” capacity management approach that focuses exclusively on OR capacity. For a setting with two dominant procedure types, we provide an analytical characterization of the optimal portfolio composition under the condition that the revenue from each procedure is proportional to the expected use of hospital resources. We also derive a general analytical description of the optimal portfolio for an arbitrary number of procedure types. For the general case of an arbitrary number of procedure types in the presence of urgent procedures, we conduct a numerical study using data that we have collected at a medium-sized teaching hospital. Our numerical study illustrates the composition of the optimal portfolios of elective procedures in different practical settings, and it investigates the quality of the CLT-based approximation and the effectiveness of the front-end approach to hospital capacity management.
Abstract Background/Purpose Esophageal atresia/tracheoesophageal fistula (EA/TEF) is a rare congenital anomaly lacking contemporary data detailing patient demographics, medical/surgical management ...and outcomes. Substantial variation in the care of infants with EA/TEF may affect both shortand long-term outcomes. The purpose of this study was to characterize the demographics, management strategies and outcomes in a contemporary multi-institutional cohort of infants diagnosed with EA/TEF to identify potential areas for standardization of care. Methods A multi-institutional retrospective cohort study of infants with EA/TEF treated at 11 children's hospitals between 2009 and 2014 was performed. Over the 5 year period, 396 cases were identified in the 11 centers (9 ± 5 per center per year). All infants with a diagnosis of EA/TEF made within 30 days of life had surgical repair of their defect defined as esophageal reconstruction with or without ligation of TEF within the first six months of life. Demographic, operative, and outcome data were collected and analyzed to detect associations between variables. Results Prenatal suspicion or diagnosis of EA/TEF was present in 53 (13%). The most common anatomy was proximal EA with distal TEF (n = 335; 85%) followed by pure EA (n = 27; 7%). Clinically significant congenital heart disease (CHD) was present in 137 (35%). Mortality was 7.5% and significantly associated with CHD (p < 0.0001). Post-operative morbidity occurred in 62% of the population, including 165 (42%) cases with anastomotic stricture requiring intervention, anastomotic leak in 89 (23%), vocal cord paresis/paralysis in 26 (7%), recurrent fistula in 19 (5%), and anastomotic dehiscence in 9 (2%). Substantial variation in practice across our institutions existed: bronchoscopy prior to repair was performed in 64% of cases (range: 0%–100%); proximal pouch contrast study in 21% (0%–69%); use of interposing material between the esophageal and tracheal suture lines in 38% (0%–69%); perioperative antibiotics ≥ 24 h in 69% (36%–97%); transanastomotic tubes in 73% (21%–100%). Conclusion Contemporary treatment of EA/TEF is characterized by substantial variation in perioperative management and considerable post-operative morbidity and mortality. Future studies are planned to establish best practices and clinical care guidelines for infants with EA/TEF. Level of Evidence Type of study: Treatment Study. Level IV
Minimally invasive repair of pectus excavatum (Nuss procedure) is associated with significant pain, and efforts to control pain impact resource utilization. Bilateral thoracic intercostal nerve ...cryoablation has been proposed as a novel technique to improve post-operative pain control, though the impact on hospital cost is unknown.
We conducted a retrospective study of patients undergoing a Nuss procedure from 2016 to 2019. Patients who received cryoablation were compared to those that received traditional pain control (patient-controlled analgesia or epidural). Outcome variables included postoperative opioid usage (milligram morphine equivalents, MME), length of stay (LOS), and hospital cost.
Thirty-five of 73 patients studied (48%) received intercostal nerve cryoablation. LOS (1.0 vs 4.0 days, p < 0.01) and total hospital cost ($21,924 versus $23,694, p = 0.04) were decreased in the cryoablation cohort, despite longer operative time (152 vs 74 min, p < 0.01). Cryoablation was associated with decreased opioid usage (15.0 versus 148.6 MME, p < 0.01) during the 24 h following surgery and this persisted over the entire postoperative period, including discharge opioid prescription (112.5 vs 300.0 MME, p < 0.01).
Bilateral intercostal nerve cryoablation is associated with decreased postoperative opioid usage and decreased resource utilization in pediatric patients undergoing a minimally invasive Nuss procedure for pectus excavatum.
Retrospective comparative study, level III.
Pediatric appendicitis is managed by general and pediatric surgeons at both children’s hospitals and non-children’s hospitals. A statewide assessment of surgeons and facilities providing appendicitis ...care was performed to identify factors associated with location of surgical care.
Children aged <18 years undergoing appendectomy for appendicitis in Wisconsin from 2018-2020 were identified through the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, and Current Procedural Terminology codes using Wisconsin Hospital Association data. Patient residence and hospital locations were used to determine travel distance, rurality, and neighborhood-level socioeconomic status.
Among 3,604 children with appendicitis, 36.0% and 12.8% had an appendectomy at 2 major children’s hospitals and 4 other children’s hospitals, respectively, and 51.2% had an appendectomy at 99 non-children’s hospitals. Pediatric surgeons performed 76.1% of appendectomies at children’s hospitals and 2.9% at non-children’s hospitals. Only 32.2% of patients received care at the hospital closest to their homes. Non-children’s hospitals disproportionally cared for older, non-Hispanic White, and privately insured children, those with uncomplicated appendicitis, and those living in rural areas, in mid-socioeconomic status neighborhoods, and greater distances from children’s hospitals (all P < .001). After multivariable adjustment, receipt of care at children’s hospitals was associated with younger age, minority race, complicated appendicitis, shorter distance to children’s hospitals, and urban residence.
Over half of surgical care for pediatric appendicitis occurred at non-children’s hospitals, especially among older children and those living in rural areas far from children’s hospitals. Future work is necessary to determine which children benefit most from care at children’s hospitals and which can safely receive care at non-children’s hospitals to avoid unnecessary time and resource utilization associated with travel to children’s hospitals.
Abstract Purpose Perioperative management of infants with esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula (EA/TEF) is frequently based on surgeon experience and dogma rather than evidence-based ...guidelines. This study examines whether commonly perceived important aspects of practice affect outcome in a contemporary multi-institutional cohort of patients undergoing primary repair for the most common type of esophageal atresia anomaly, proximal EA with distal TEF. Methods The Midwest Pediatric Surgery Consortium conducted a multi-center, retrospective study examining selected outcomes on infants diagnosed with proximal EA with distal TEF who underwent primary repair over a 5-year period (2009–2014), with a minimum one-year follow up, across 11 centers. Results 292 patients with proximal EA and distal TEF who underwent primary repair were reviewed. The overall mortality was 6% and was significantly associated with the presence of congenital heart disease (OR 4.82, p = 0.005). Post-operative complications occurred in 181 (62%) infants, including: anastomotic stricture requiring intervention (n = 127; 43%); anastomotic leak (n = 54; 18%); recurrent fistula (n = 15; 5%); vocal cord paralysis/paresis (n = 14; 5%); and esophageal dehiscence (n = 5; 2%). Placement of a transanastomotic tube was associated with an increase in esophageal stricture formation (OR 2.2, p = 0.01). Acid suppression was not associated with altered rates of stricture, leak or pneumonia (all p > 0.1). Placement of interposing prosthetic material between the esophageal and tracheal suture lines was associated with an increased leak rate (OR 4.7, p < 0.001), but no difference in the incidence of recurrent fistula (p = 0.3). Empiric postoperative antibiotics for > 24 h was used in 193 patients (66%) with no difference in rates of infection, shock or death when compared to antibiotic use ≤ 24 h (all p > 0.3). Hospital volume was not associated with post-operative complication rates (p > 0.08). Routine postoperative esophagram obtained on day 5 resulted in no delayed/missed anastomotic leaks or a difference in anastomotic leak rate as compared to esophagrams obtained on day 7. Conclusion Morbidity after primary repair of proximal EA and distal TEF patients is substantial, and many common practices do not appear to reduce complications. Specifically, this large retrospective series does not support the use of prophylactic antibiotics beyond 24 h and empiric acid suppression may not prevent complications. Use of a trans-anastomotic tube was associated with higher rates of stricture, and interposition of prosthetic material was associated with higher leak rates. Routine post-operative esophagram can be safely obtained on day 5 resulting in earlier initiation of oral feeds. Study type: Treatment study. Level III evidence.
Abstract Introduction Perforated appendicitis is a common condition in children, which, in a small number of patients, may be complicated by a well-formed abscess. Initial nonoperative management ...with percutaneous drainage/aspiration of the abscess followed by intravenous antibiotics usually allows for an uneventful interval appendectomy. Although this strategy has become well accepted, there are no published data comparing initial nonoperative management (drainage/interval appendectomy) to appendectomy upon presentation with an abscess. Therefore, we conducted a randomized trial comparing these 2 management strategies. Methods After internal review board approval (#06 11-164), children who presented with a well-defined abdominal abscess by computed tomographic imaging were randomized on admission to laparoscopic appendectomy or intravenous antibiotics with percutaneous drainage of the abscess (when possible), followed by interval laparoscopic appendectomy approximately 10 weeks later. This was a pilot study with a sample size of 40, which was based on our recent volume of patients presenting with appendicitis and abscess. Results On presentation, there were no differences between the 2 groups regarding age, weight, body mass index, sex distribution, temperature, leukocyte count, number of abscesses, or greatest 2-dimensional area of abscess in the axial view. Regarding outcomes, there were no differences in length of total hospitalization, recurrent abscess rates, or overall charges. There was a trend toward a longer operating time in patients undergoing initial appendectomy (61 minutes versus 42 minutes mean, P = .06). Conclusions Although initial laparoscopic appendectomy trends toward a requiring longer operative time, there seems to be no advantages between these strategies in terms of total hospitalization, recurrent abscess rate, or total charges.
Nonoperative management (NOM) is the standard of care for the management of blunt liver and spleen injuries (BLSI) in the stable pediatric patient. Angiography with embolization (AE) is used as an ...adjunctive therapy in the management of adult BLSI patients, but it is rarely used in the pediatric population. In this planned secondary analysis, we describe the current utilization patterns of AE in the management of pediatric BLSI.
After obtaining IRB approval at each center, cohort data was collected prospectively for children admitted with BLSI confirmed on CT at 10 Level I pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) throughout the United States from April 2013 to January 2016. All patients who underwent angiography with or without embolization for a BLSI were included in this analysis. Data collected included patient demographics, injury details, organ injured and grade of injury, CT finding specifics such as contrast blush, complications, failure of NOM, time to angiography and techniques for embolization.
Data were collected for 1004 pediatric patients treated for BLSI over the study period, 30 (3.0%) of which underwent angiography with or without embolization for BLSI. Ten of the patients who underwent angiography for BLSI failed NOM. For patients with embolized splenic injuries, splenic salvage was 100%. Four of the nine patients undergoing embolization of the liver ultimately required an operative intervention, but only one patient required hepatorrhaphy and no patient required hepatectomy after AE. Few angiography studies were obtained early during hospitalization for BLSI, with only one patient undergoing angiography within 1 hour of arrival at the PTC, and 7 within 3 hours.
Angioembolization is rarely used in the management of BLSI in pediatric trauma patients with blunt abdominal trauma and is generally used in a delayed fashion. However, when implemented, angioembolization is associated with 100% splenic salvage for splenic injuries.
Therapeutic/Care Management; Level IV.
•In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought much uncertainty to people in the U.S., followed by an unprecedented increase in firearm sales.•In this study, children suffered significantly more firearm ...injuries during the COVID-19 pandemic and those who lacked certain social determinants of health were at greater risk.
Firearm sales in the United States (U.S.) markedly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our objective was to determine if firearm injuries in children were associated with stay-at-home orders (SHO) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized there would be an increase in pediatric firearm injuries during SHO.
This was a multi institutional, retrospective study of institutional trauma registries. Patients <18 years with traumatic injuries meeting National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) criteria were included. A “COVID” cohort, defined as time from initiation of state SHO through September 30, 2020 was compared to “Historical” controls from an averaged period of corresponding dates in 2016–2019. An interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) was utilized to evaluate the association of the U.S. declaration of a national state of emergency with pediatric firearm injuries.
Nine Level I pediatric trauma centers were included, contributing 48,111 pediatric trauma patients, of which 1,090 patients (2.3%) suffered firearm injuries. There was a significant increase in the proportion of firearm injuries in the COVID cohort (COVID 3.04% vs. Historical 1.83%; p < 0.001). There was an increased cumulative burden of firearm injuries in 2020 compared to a historical average. ITSA showed an 87% increase in the observed rate of firearm injuries above expected after the declaration of a nationwide emergency (p < 0.001).
The proportion of firearm injuries affecting children increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic was associated with an increase in pediatric firearm injuries above expected rates based on historical patterns.
PDF
