Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Anticipation, Accompaniment, And A Good Death In Perinatal Care., Bryanna S. Moore, Brian S. Carter, Bryan Beaven, Katie House, Joel House

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

The ethics of perinatal care, and the experiences of families who receive such care, remains a nascent area of inquiry. It can be hard to see how existing "good death" constructs apply to the experiences of fetal patients and their families. In this paper, we explore two themes raised by a case at our fetal health center: anticipation and accompaniment. In this case, a mother presented to our fetal health center; her unborn son, our fetal patient, was diagnosed with life-threatening hypoplastic left heart syndrome and endocardial fibroelastosis. The parents were told that their son's life expectancy, upon birth, was …

The Early "Unnatural" History Following Surgical Repair Of Ventricular Septal Defects., Sathish M. Chikkabyrappa, Justin T. Tretter, Arpan R. Doshi, Sujatha Buddhe, Puneet Bhatla, Achi Ludomirsky

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Introduction: Surgical outcomes for simple ventricular septal defects (VSD) have been excellent in the past three decades. For this project, the timing of resolution of left-sided dilation and mitral regurgitation (MR) following VSD repair was assessed.

Methods: Echocardiographic data surrounding surgery of 42 consecutive children who underwent surgical patch repair of a VSD were reviewed. The echocardiograms were reviewed up to a mean of 12 months post-operatively (range 9 - 14 months). Quantitative data indexed to body surface area including left atrial (LA) volume, mitral valve annulus diameter, and left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVEDD) was analyzed.

Results: The majority of …

Failure To Rescue As An Outcome Metric For Pediatric And Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Programs: Analysis Of Data From The Impact Registry., Michael L. O'Byrne, Kevin F. Kennedy, Natalie Jayaram, Lisa J. Bergersen, Matthew J. Gillespie, Yoav Dori, Jeffrey H. Silber, Steven M. Kawut, Jonathan J. Rome, Andrew C. Glatz

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Background Risk-adjusted adverse event (AE) rates have been used to measure the quality of pediatric and congenital cardiac catheterization laboratories. In other settings, failure to rescue (FTR) has demonstrated utility as a quality metric. Methods and Results A multicenter retrospective cohort study was performed using data from the IMPACT (Improving Adult and Congenital Treatment) Registry between January 2010 and December 2016. A modified FTR metric was developed for pediatric and congenital cardiac catheterization laboratories and then compared with pooled AEs. The associations between patient- and hospital-level factors and outcomes were evaluated using hierarchical logistic regression models. Hospital risk standardized ratios …

Comparison Of Echocardiographic Measurements To Invasive Measurements Of Diastolic Function In Infants With Single Ventricle Physiology: A Report From The Pediatric Heart Network Infant Single Ventricle Trial., Suma P. Goudar, Victor Zak, Andrew M. Atz, Karen Altmann, Steven D. Colan, Christine B. Falkensammer, Mark K. Friedberg, Michele Frommelt, Kevin D. Hill, Daphne T. Hsu, Jami C. Levine, Renee Margossian, Christopher R. Mart, Joshua Sticka, Peter Shrader, Girish S. Shirali, Pediatric Heart Network Investigators

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: While echocardiographic parameters are used to quantify ventricular function in infants with single ventricle physiology, there are few data comparing these to invasive measurements. This study correlates echocardiographic measures of diastolic function with ventricular end-diastolic pressure in infants with single ventricle physiology prior to superior cavopulmonary anastomosis.

METHODS: Data from 173 patients enrolled in the Pediatric Heart Network Infant Single Ventricle enalapril trial were analysed. Those with mixed ventricular types (n = 17) and one outlier (end-diastolic pressure = 32 mmHg) were excluded from the analysis, leaving a total sample size of 155 patients. Echocardiographic measurements were correlated to …

A Population Pharmacokinetic Model For Simvastatin And Its Metabolites In Children And Adolescents., Kayode Ogungbenro, Jonathan B. Wagner, Susan M. Abdel-Rahman, J Steven Leeder, Aleksandra Galetin

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

PURPOSE: Poor adherence to dietary/behaviour modifications as interventions for hypercholesterolemia in paediatric patients often necessitates the initiation of statin therapy. The aim of this study was to develop a joint population pharmacokinetic model for simvastatin and four metabolites in children and adolescents to investigate sources of variability in simvastatin acid exposure in this patient population, in addition to SLCO1B1 genotype status.

METHODS: Plasma concentrations of simvastatin and its four metabolites, demographic and polymorphism data for OATP1B1 and CYP3A5 were analysed utilising a population pharmacokinetic modelling approach from an existing single oral dose (10 mg < 17 years and 20 mg ≥ 18 years) pharmacokinetic dataset of 32 children and adolescents.

RESULTS: The population PK model included …

Electromechanical Dyssynchrony And Clinically Silent Ventricular Dysfunction In Young Subjects With Ventricular Pacing For Congenital And Early Acquired Av Block, Daniel Forsha, David G. Gamboa, Niels Risum, Andrea Kropf, Christoph P. Hornik, Piers Barker, Joseph Kisslo, Ronald J. Kanter

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Purpose: Single site ventricular pacing can result in electromechanical dyssynchrony and LV dysfunction. A classic pattern by strain echocardiography pattern analysis has been defined that specifically identifies electromechanical dyssynchrony that leads to LV dysfunction in other populations. Our purpose is to evaluate for the presence of the classic pattern and an association with LV dysfunction in asymptomatic young subjects with chronic pacing.

Methods: Inclusion criteria of non-surgical 2nd or 3rd degree AV block, normal cardiac anatomy, chronic ventricular pacing (> 95% of beats) and a quality 4-chamber apical image were met by 24 retrospective and 10 prospectively enrolled subjects. Global …

Effect Of Intravenous Phenobarbital On Left Ventricular Myocardial Contractility Determined By Echocardiography In Children., Arpan R. Doshi, Monesha Gupta Malhotra, Duraisamy Balaguru, Devendra Amre, Christian Erikson

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Introduction: Animal studies and rare human studies have suggested a negative effect of barbiturates on cardiac function. Although intravenous (IV) phenobarbital is used routinely in children in the clinical setting, studies in children are lacking. We performed a study to evaluate effect of IV phenobarbital loading on myocardial systolic function of children.

Methods: In a prospective pilot study in children without congenital heart defects, the effect of IV phenobarbital was evaluated on the left ventricular systolic function measured by ejection fraction (EF) by Simpson's method via an echocardiogram. Any child less than 18 years of age who received IV loading …

Ucp1 Expression-Associated Gene Signatures Of Human Epicardial Adipose Tissue., Kanta Chechi, Jinchu Vijay, Pierre Voisine, Patrick Mathieu, Yohan Bossé, Andre Tchernof, Elin Grundberg, Denis Richard

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Multiple reports of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) expression have established its presence in human epicardial adipose tissue (eAT). Its functional relevance to eAT, however, remains largely unknown. In a recent study, we reported that adrenergic stimulation of eAT was associated with downregulation of secreted proteins involved in oxidative stress-related and immune-related pathways. Here, we explored the UCP1-associated features of human eAT using next-generation deep sequencing. Paired biopsies of eAT, mediastinal adipose tissue (mAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (sAT) obtained from cardiac surgery patients, with specific criteria of high and low expression of UCP1 in eAT, were subjected to RNA sequencing. …

Identification Of Inadvertent Azygous Vein Cannulation Using Transthoracic Echocardiography During Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Initiation., Bethany Runkel, Jason D. Fraser, John Daniel, Karina M. Carlson

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

It is well known that optimal cannula positioning during initiation of venoarterial (VA) extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is directly related to ECMO circuit function. Malpositioned cannulae can have deleterious effects on clinical outcomes, and inadvertent cannulation of the azygous vein during initiation of ECMO is a rare but potentially devastating complication that has been reported only a few times in the literature. Here we report a case of azygous vein cannulation in a neonate that was not identified on chest radiography but was recognized and corrected expeditiously with the use of transthoracic echocardiography.