title: Sequelae of prolonged ventilatory support for pediatric surgical patients.
abstract: The evolution of intensive prolonged respiratory support has been a major development in improving survival in the critically-ill child. That intensive respiratory support can be maintained for prolonged periods of time even in the home with survival of good babies is the subject of this report. In a 3-yr period, 2112 surgical patients were admitted to intensive care facilities with an over-all survival of 95%. Ventilatory support was required in 368 (17.4%) of these children, and survival in this group was 75.3%. Prolonged mechanical ventilation was necessary in 13 of the 368 children (3.5%) for a mean support time of 359 days (range 101 to 1095). Of these 13 children, 4 died while hospitalized (30.8%), and 3 died subsequently after being discharged (23.1%) for a total mortality of 53.8%. However, 6 children (46.2%) survive, 3 free of ventilatory support and 3 being weaned from their machine at home. The greatest cost in this expensive program was delivered to the survivors and psycho-social and developmental data confirm that these children are good babies with favorable long-term prognoses.
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003422:Critical Care; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D011379:Prognosis; D012121:Respiration, Artificial / Q000191:economics; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000191:economics; D013997:Time Factors