Welcome to PICU Doc On Call, a podcast dedicated to current and aspiring intensivists. My name is Pradip Kamat.

My name is Rahul Damania, a current 2nd-year pediatric critical care fellow. We come to you from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta-Emory University School of Medicine.

Today's episode is dedicated to pediatric post-cardiac arrest care.

We are going to split this topic into two episodes, part one of pediatric post-cardiac arrest syndrome will address the epidemiology, causes, and pathophysiology.

I will turn it over to Rahul to start with our patient case...

11 yo previously healthy M who is admitted to the PICU after cardiac arrest.
The patient was noted to be found unresponsive and submerged in a neighborhood pool.
He was pulled out by bystanders and CPR was started for 5 minutes with two rounds of epinephrine prior to achieving ROSC.
During transport to the OSH, the patient developed hypotension requiring a continuous epinephrine infusion.
His initial blood gas was notable for a mixed respiratory and metabolic acidosis:
7.0/60/-20
His initial serum lactate was 6.8 mmol/L.
He presents to the PICU with a temperature of 36.6, HR 130s, MAPs 50s on Epinephrine infusion at 0.03mcg/kg/min
He is mechanically ventilated with notable settings PEEP of 10, FiO2 65%.
The patient is taken to head CT which shows diffuse cerebral edema and diffusely diminished grey-white differentiation most pronounced in the basal ganglia.

Great Rahul, can you please comment on his physical exam & PMH?

Important physical exam findings include an unresponsive intubated patient with a cervical collar and bilateral non-reactive pupils at 4mm. The patient received mechanical ventilation with coarse breath sounds. A heart exam revealed tachycardia with no murmur or gallop. The patient does not respond to stimuli, intermittent jerking movements of arms and legs were observed. There was no evidence of rash or trauma. No past medical history of seizures or any heart disease. No home medications or toxic ingestions are suspected.

So now he is transferred to the ICU, what did we do?

An arterial line, central venous line, urinary catheter, esophageal temperature probe was placed. The patient was ventilated using a TV of 6cc/kg and a PEEP of 10 (FIO2 ~65%) to keep SPO2 >94%. The patient initially had runs of ventricular tachycardia for which lidocaine was used. Although the initial EKG showed mild QTc prolongation, it subsequently normalized and was considered to be due to his cardiac arrest and resuscitation. An echocardiogram revealed normal biventricular systolic function (on epinephrine) and also showed normal origins of the coronary arteries. Comprehensive Arrhythmia Panel did not identify a specific genetic cause for the patient's sudden cardiac arrest. The patient was placed on continuous EEG, which demonstrated...

Pediatric Post Cardiac Arrest Syndrome (PCAS) Part 1

PICU Doc On Call