Objective
Despite declining mortality, ARDS is still involved in up to one third of pediatric intensive care deaths. The recently convened Pediatric Acute Lung Injury Consensus Conference has outlined research priorities for the field, which include the need for accurate bedside risk-stratification of patients. We aimed to develop a simple yet robust model of mortality risk among pediatric patients with ARDS to facilitate the targeted application of high-risk investigational therapies and stratification for enrollment in clinical trials.
Design
Prospective, multi-center cohort.
Setting
Five academic pediatric intensive care units.
Patients
308 children ages >1 month and ≤ 18 years, admitted to the intensive care unit, with bilateral infiltrates on chest x-ray and P/F ratio <300 in the clinical absence of left atrial hypertension.
Interventions
None.
Measurements and Main Results
Twenty clinical variables were recorded in the following 6 categories: demographics, medical history, oxygenation, ventilation, radiographic imaging, and multi-organ dysfunction. Data were measured 0–24 and 48–72 hours after ARDS onset (Day 1 and Day 3) and examined for associations with hospital mortality. Among 308 enrolled patients, mortality was 17%. Children with a history of cancer and/or hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) had higher mortality (47% vs. 11%, p<0.001). Oxygenation index (OI), the P/F ratio, extrapulmonary organ dysfunction, PRISM-3, and positive cumulative fluid balance were each associated with mortality. Using two statistical approaches, we found that a parsimonious model of mortality risk using only OI and cancer/HSCT history performed as well as other more complex models that required additional variables.
Conclusions
In the pediatric intensive care unit, OI and cancer/HSCT history can be used on ARDS Day 1 or Day 3 to predict hospital mortality without the need for more complex models. These findings may simplify risk assessment for clinical trials, counseling families, and high-risk interventions such as extracorporeal life support.