Antipyretics and analgesics in children

Pain Management and Conscious Sedation for the Pediatric Patient

Pain management in children was previously ignored primarily because of myths and misconceptions about childhood pain. Undertreatment of pain was once a common and accepted practice. However, in recent years, with increased knowledge and understanding coupled with improved pain assessment tools, health care providers are more conscious about providing adequate and safe analgesia to children. Because of the differences in patient response to various pharmacological agents, it is important to understand the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic differences of the various agents. Choices of pain management should be individualized, and adjustments should be made based on the patient's clinical condition. Conscious sedation before diagnostic and therapeutic procedures should be approached with caution. Deaths and complications related to conscious sedation therapy have prompted the development of guidelines for safer and more effective pharmacological interventions. The recently published guidelines include recommendations for skilled personnel, continuous monitoring, appropriate use of drugs, and ability to manage unforeseen complications. Selection of the most appropriate sedatives should take into consideration the type of procedure, the patient's clinical condition, and the desired level and duration of consciousness. Similar to pain management, individualization is crucial. This article will discuss the principles of pain management and conscious sedation in children. Facts and scientific findings will be presented to discredit the myths and misconceptions often associated with pediatric pain. Various pain assessment tools will be summarized. The newly published sedation guidelines set forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs will be briefly discussed. Furthermore, commonly used agents will be reviewed. Copyright © 1996 by W.B. Saunders Company

Pediatric pain management (Part I)

This article is the first in a two-part series on pediatric pain management. It contains primarily a general discussion of pediatric pain, myths and misconceptions about pediatric pain, and the use of nonnarcotic analgesics for pain control. In the second article, the use of narcotic analgesics for the pediatric population will be discussed.

Paracetamol poisoning in children and hepatotoxicity

1. Paracetamol is one of the most common drugs that children accidentally ingest. Unlike the situation in adults, death and hepatotoxicity in children from paracetamol poisoning are exceedingly uncommon events. A review of the literature has revealed only seven deaths and fourteen cases of hepatotoxicity in children, with most of the cases resulting from chronic poisoning and not acute poisoning. 2. Children may be less prone to paracetamol hepatotoxicity because of developmental differences in the drug's metabolism and its pathways of detoxification. In the therapeutic setting of treatment of fever and pain in children, paracetamol is regarded as a drug with a higher therapeutic index, and as such, there seems to be little concern with strict adherence to dosage regimes. 3. Scrutiny of the above paediatric cases associated with chronic paracetamol poisoning suggests that the margin of safety of frequent therapeutic doses of paracetamol in infants and young children to be a lot lower than previously appreciated. This review highlights the need to re-evaluate the safety of paracetamol in the context of chronic therapy in infants and young children.

Changes in body temperature after administration of antipyretics, LSD, delta 9-THC and related agents: II

Antipyretics, in particular acetaminophen, aspirin and ibuprofen, constitute the single most important class of drugs used therapeutically for an effect on body temperature. Hallucinogens exert prominent actions on the central nervous system, and it is not surprising that, like so many other centrally-acting agents, they too often affect temperature. This compilation primarily covers the considerable amount of data published from 1981 through 1985 on the interactions of these drugs and thermoregulation, but data from many earlier papers not included in a previous compilation are also tabulated. The effects of agents not classically considered as antipyretics on temperatures of febrile subjects are also covered. The information listed includes the species used, the route of administration and dose of drug, the environmental temperature at which experiments were performed, the number of tests, the direction and magnitude of change in body temperature and remarks on special conditions, such as age or brain lesions. Also indicated is the influence of other drugs, such as antagonists, on the response to the primary agent.

Cleansing the blood. Hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, exchange transfusion, charcoal hemoperfusion, forced diuresis

ECDR can be a valuable adjunct to the therapy of pediatric poisonings. Careful consultation with a medical toxicologist and a nephrologist will be useful in reaching the decision as to which poisonings lend themselves to ECDR and which method is most appropriate for the specific case. Avoid advice that amounts to, "if you are not certain, dialyze." While the risks of many ECDR techniques are acceptable in major medical centers, it may not be good medicine to superimpose any morbidity from ECDR upon the poisoned patient when there can be little expectation of drug removal. It is wise to phrase your questions to consultants carefully. The question: "can this substance be dialyzed (hemoperfused, plasmaphoresed, etc.)?" is loaded and the answer frequently will be "yes!" The more proper questions are: "how much drug can be removed by ECDR, how long will the method take, how will this affect the present condition of the patient?" Clearly, a risk: benefit ratio must always be considered. There are lists of substances that "can" be removed by ECDR. It is more difficult to judge how much of the body burden is removed by such methods. Digoxin "can" be dialyzed, but it is not quantitatively removed from the body and there is no accepted benefit from ECDR in this instance. The volume of distribution is a useful guide to determine which substances may be removed quantitatively by ECDR. The exaggerated claims to increased plasma clearance of a hemoperfusion device may not be meaningful if the distribution space is large and plasma levels are correspondingly low. Finally, many of the advantages and disadvantages of ECDR are not likely to change markedly as a result of technology. We currently have very efficient machines for ECDR. It is the chemical characteristics of some toxic substances that limit the more global role of ECDR in poisoning. Serologic therapy, such as specific Fab antibody fragments for use in digoxin poisonings or the exciting work by Russell and colleagues using affinity chromatography to purify specific antibody fragments from horse serum, may be applicable to numerous intoxications. This approach, used in combination with ECDR or alone, will undoubtedly influence the future growth of clinical toxicology.