Introduction: Mortality statistics from pediatric intensive care units (PICU) are widely available. Early Death (ED) is defined as death occurred within 24 hour of ICU admission. Few clinical reports on ED are available from adult ICU. There is a paucity of data on ED available from PICU. The objective of the study is to assess the frequency of Early Deaths and describe the patient’s clinical-demographic characteristics who died within the first 24 hours of PICU admission Methods: A total of 225 children (age-1 month to 15 years) who expired within 24-hour of admission in PICU of Children Hospital of Korangi, Karachi were eligible. Data were extracted from electronic medical record including patients’ demographic characteristics, pertinent clinical variables, selected labs and imaging, pediatric sequential organ dysfunction (p-SOFA) score and ICU-specific intervention were collected. Descriptive statistics were applied. Results: The overall mortality rate was 8.72% (666) of all admissons (n=5814) and 33.78% (225) of all deaths were ED. The median age was 12 mo (IQR 6-24mo) and 55% were male. Almost half of the patients (48.5%) were terminally ill. The most common abnormal critical clinical parameters were hypoxia 88%(n=198), hypotension 88%(n=198) and decreased level of consciousness 89.8%(n=202). The mean p-SOFA was 10.6±4. Septic shock, cardiac diseases and multi-organ failure were the most common diagnoses at the time of death. Vasoactive drugs and mechanical ventilation were used in 99.6% (n=224) and 82.7% (186) respectively. The mean time from PICU admission to death was 10.5±9.8 hours. Conclusions: We found the frequency of early deaths was more than one-third of all deaths in PICU (34.8%). Nearly half of them were futile. Septic shock, cardiac illnesses and multiorgan failure were the common diagnoses More comprehensive studies are needed on early deaths from PICUs for critical analysis.
Iqbal et al. (Sun,) studied this question.