With millions upon millions of journal articles being published yearly, it is impossible to keep up. Every month, we ask some of our friends from PERUKI (Paediatric Emergency Research in the UK and Ireland) to point out something that has caught their eye.
Article 1: To glue or not to glue?
Why does it matter?
Children, adorable as they are, are a bit clumsy and often fall over, resulting in facial lacerations. These minor traumas are often present in ED, and the majority are repaired using tissue adhesive, which is fast and pain-free. This study aims to determine if the dehiscence rate differed amongst simple wounds repaired with tissue adhesive compared with sutures.
What’s it about?
The electronic records of children presenting to a tertiary paediatric centre (between Dec 2015 and Nov 2017) with a diagnosis of traumatic facial/head lacerations were reviewed. Children who had wounds at risk of infection (e.g., animal bites, heavily soiled, required debridement) or complex wounds (e.g., greater than 5cm, in high-mobility areas, extended to muscle layers) were excluded.
A total of 2044 children were eligible, and 89% of the wounds were repaired using tissue adhesive. The primary outcome was dehiscence in the 30 days after repair, with the secondary outcome being infection. Electronic records were reviewed, and parents of eligible children were called and asked about wound healing.
There was no statistically significant difference in rates of dehiscence or infection between tissue adhesive and sutures for facial lacerations. The same was found for chin lacerations, which have a 5x higher rate of dehiscence than other facial lacerations.
Clinically Relevant Bottom Line
We use our clinical judgment as no guidelines exist to guide our decision-making process for using tissue adhesives or sutures. It is reassuring to know that tissue adhesives do not have statistically significant higher complication rates for low-risk wounds and should continue being the first choice for repair.
Reviewed by: Tina Abi Abdallah
Article 2: Long-Term Follow-Up of Infants After a BRUE–Related Hospitalization
What’s it about?
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ change of terminology from an ALTE (acute life-threatening event) to a BRUE (brief resolved unexplained event) was a welcome change for those who believed a more pragmatic approach to this not-uncommon presentation was needed. However, the definition change meant that some children previously categorised as ALTE may not have had the investigations or observations they would normally have received. This study looked at the outcomes of infants at five years following their presentation with a BRUE.
A brief resolved unexplained event (BRUE) is defined as “an event occurring in an infant <1 year of age when the observer reports a sudden, brief and now resolved episode of ≥1 of the following:
- Cyanosis or pallor
- Absent, decreased or irregular breathing
- Marked changes in tone
- Altered level of responsiveness
Importantly, although parental attempts at resuscitation are obviously acknowledged, a BRUE diagnosis is based on how the clinician defines the event and not on a caregiver’s perception that this was a life-threatening event.
This single-centre retrospective study was performed in a relatively large children’s Emergency Department (54,000 children a year) in Israel from 2009-13. These dates are important as (i) data collection is very retrospective, meaning that it’s difficult to know what the clinicians definitely did, and (ii) it predates the emergence of the term BRUE, so while strict BRUE criteria were applied to selected patients, the concept wasn’t a working diagnosis for clinicians at that time. It is also important to note that only hospitalised children were included, i.e. those discharged from ED were not part of the cases. This means that the findings of this study may not be comparable to other centres that discharge directly or admit to an ED short-stay unit.
Essentially, of 87 children who were followed up via telephone questionnaire, 71 (81.6%) were described as having normal development, one (1.1%) child had global developmental delay, 12 (13.8%) had verbal delay, and 3 (3.4%) had autistic spectrum disorder. These, apart from a 1% ASD incidence, are not grossly different from population statistics. In this cohort, 2.3% had had a febrile seizure, and 1.15% had nonfebrile seizures, again not dissimilar from population norms.
Clinically Relevant Bottom Line:
The longer-term outcomes, in this small study, of a child with a retrospective diagnosis of a BRUE are not alarming. A prospective study is clearly needed to confirm this.
Reviewed by: Damian Roland (@damian_roland)
Article 3: Which medication is best for neonatal abstinence syndrome?
Disher et al. Pharmacological Treatments for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics. 2019 Mar; 173(3)
What’s it about?
This meta-analysis aimed to compare the different pharmacological agents available for the treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and identify the most effective therapy in terms of reducing the length of treatment, the length of stay, the need for adjuvant therapy and adverse events.
The study analysed eighteen randomised clinical trials (N = 1072) which compared buprenorphine, clonidine, diluted tincture of opium and clonidine, diluted tincture of opium, morphine, methadone and phenobarbital.
Buprenorphine was found to be the best treatment, given the reduction in the length of treatment of 12.75 days (95% CI, -17.97 to -7.58) compared to morphine. Buprenorphine also reduced the length of stay but did not require adjuvant treatment, unlike other pharmacological agents. On the other hand, morphine and phenobarbital were the worst treatments in terms of relative effects and rankings.
Why does it matter?
Morphine is the most commonly used pharmacological agent in the treatment of NAS, however this meta-analysis suggests that it may be the worst treatment choice in terms of length of treatment and hospital stay! The benefit of buprenorphine could be due to its longer half-life and, therefore, prevention of sudden withdrawal symptoms. It was also interesting to note the “less mainstream” therapy options, such as diluted tincture of opium, for the treatment of NAS in some centres.
Clinically relevant bottom line:
While the findings of this meta-analysis make us wonder whether buprenorphine should be used more widely as the first-line treatment for NAS, the authors emphasise that there is a need for a large multisite trial that compares buprenorphine with other treatments before it can be accepted as the standard treatment for NAS. Watch this space!
Reviewed by: Jennifer Moon
Article 4: Sorry, where was I? I was a little distracted…
What’s it about?
A team of observers followed 36 emergency physicians around on shift and watched them in three-hour blocks to codify how often they were interrupted. By using WOMBAT (Work Observation Method By Activity Timing), the observers could capture the physicians’ minute-by-minute adventures. They found that, on average, an emergency physician was interrupted 7.9 times per hour. They also looked at prescribing errors (by collecting the paper charts) and found 208 prescribing errors in 238 medication orders. Now, it must be pointed out that a number of these errors were what is termed as legal errors (unapproved abbreviations, for example) rather than clinical errors, but this number is still very shocking. Drilling down further in the data, it is apparent that interruptions whilst prescribing lead to a 2.82 x increase in clinical errors.
Why does it matter?
I can barely make it through my first coffee of the shift before someone hands me an ECG to look at or asks me to review a patient. I’ve switched to drinking long blacks, so it doesn’t matter if I have to leave my caffeine, but what happens if I am doing something more important – charting medications, working out fluid regimes – for example? This research took place in a department using analogue rather than digital prescriptions, so one would hope the error rate might be less in this era of the dreaded EMR. For now, though, if I am writing something more than paracetamol, I’ll try to remain laser-focused on the task at hand.
Clinically-relevant bottom line?
Doctors get interrupted all the time at work. Whilst the interrupter might think it is a trivial task for you, it is worth thinking about how you can change the culture to reduce the chance of significant prescribing errors occurring when you are asked to ‘just take a look at this ECG.
We discussed this post with Casey and the gang at SMACC in Sydney.
Reviewed by: Andrew Tagg (@andrewjtagg)
If we have missed out on something useful or you think other articles are absolutely worth sharing, please add them in the comments! That’s it for this month. Many thanks to all of our reviewers who have taken the time to scour the literature so you don’t have to.
