An Evaluation of Fatality Rates in Pediatric Intensive Care Patients. |
Seong Deok Kim, Yong Seok Oh, Hyun Ok Yoon |
Department of Anesthesiology, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. |
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Abstract |
This study was done on the 209 expired patients among 2,480 pediatric intensive care patients who were admitted to pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), Seoul National University Children's Hospital (SNUCH) from 1986 to 1988.
The overall fatality rates were 7.5%, 8.3%and 9.3%in 1986, 1987 and 1988 respectively. The fatality rate in cardiothoracic surgery increased year by year, which were 6.0%, 6.2 %and 9.7% in 1986, 1987 and 1988. The abrupt rise of fatality rate in cardiothoracic surgery in 1986 might be related to the increase of total number of complex heart diseases which required more urgent surgical interventions in their early ages. The fatality rate was inversely proportional to age. Moreover, patients under 1 month and between 1 month and 1 year showed 16.0% and 12.1% of fatality rate respectively. The patients staying for more than 8 days showed the highest fatality rate (13.8%), which might be partially related to increased incidence of complications. We conclude that fatality rate in PICU will not be easily decreased due to increased number of complex congenital heart diseases and medical insurance in Korea. |
Key Words:
PICU; Fatality rate; SNUCH |
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