Harnessing the Promise of the Cold Stress Response for Acute Brain Injury and Critical Illness in Infants and Children

Targeted Temperature Management After Pediatric Cardiac Arrest: A Quality Improvement Program With Multidisciplinary Implementation in the PICU

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to implement a post-cardiac arrest targeted temperature management (TTM) bundle to reduce the percent of time with a fever from 7% to 3.5%.

DESIGN

A prospective, quality improvement (QI) initiative utilizing the Method for Improvement. The pre-intervention historical control period was February 2019 to March 2021, and the intervention test period was April 2021 to June 2022.

SETTING

The PICU of a freestanding, tertiary children's hospital, in the United States.

PATIENTS

Pediatric patients 2 days old or older to 18 young or younger than years old who experienced cardiac arrest, received greater than or equal to 2 minutes of chest compressions, required invasive mechanical ventilation post-resuscitation, and had no documented limitations of care.

INTERVENTIONS

We developed and implemented a TTM bundle that included standard temperature goals, instructions and training on cooling blanket use, scheduled prescription of antipyretics, an algorithm for managing shivering, and standardized orders in our electronic health record.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS

We reviewed data from 29 patients in the pre-intervention period and studied 46 in the intervention period. In comparison with historical controls, the reduction in median (interquartile range [IQR]) percentage of febrile (> 38°C) time per patient associated with the TTM bundle was 0% (IQR, 0-3%) vs. 7% (IQR, 0-13%; p < 0.001). The intervention period, vs. pre-intervention, was associated with fewer patients with fever at any time (16/46 vs. 21/29; mean reduction, 37%; 95% CI, 13.8-54.8%; p = 0.002). We failed to identify an association between the intervention period, vs. pre-intervention, and the development of hypothermia (< 35°C; 8/46 vs. 3/29; mean change, 7%; 95% CI, -10.9% to 21.8%; p = 0.40).

CONCLUSIONS

In this QI project, we have demonstrated that implementation of a TTM bundle is associated with reduced duration and frequency of fever in patients who survive cardiac arrest.

Effect Size of Targeted Temperature Management in Pediatric Patients with Post-Cardiac Arrest Syndrome According to the Severity

AIM

Few studies have investigated the differential effects of targeted temperature management (TTM) according to the severity of the condition in pediatric patients with post-cardiac arrest syndrome (PCAS). This study was aimed at evaluating the differential effects of TTM in pediatric patients with PCAS according to a risk classification tool developed by us, the rCAST.

METHODS

We used data from a nationwide prospective registry for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients in Japan. We classified eligible pediatric PCAS patients (aged ≤ 18 years) into quintiles based on their rCAST scores and evaluated the effect of TTM on the neurological outcomes in each severity group. Then, focusing on the severity group that appeared to benefit from TTM, we also evaluated the effect of TTM by propensity score analysis. Good neurological outcome was defined as a score on the Cerebral Performance Category or Pediatric Cerebral Performance Category scale of ≤2 at 30 days.

RESULTS

Among 1526 OHCA pediatric patients enrolled in the registry, the data of 307 PCAS patients were analyzed. None of the patients in the fifth quintile (rCAST ≥ 18.5) showed a good neurological outcome, regardless of whether they received TTM or not (0% [0/20] vs. 0% [0/73]). The propensity score analysis showed that TTM was significantly associated with a good neurological outcome in patients with rCAST scores in the first to fourth quintile (odds ratio: 1.21 [1.04-1.40], p = 0.014).

CONCLUSIONS

TTM was significantly associated with good neurological outcomes in pediatric PCAS patients with rCAST scores of ≤18.0.