Assessment and management of the predicted difficult airway in babies and children

Although it is essential to take a history and examine every child prior to airway management, preoperative anticipation of a difficult airway is not totally reliable and therefore it is wise to be prepared for the unexpected difficult airway. Information about the airway can be gained from previous medical records, current history, physical examination and other tests. A natural consequence of airway assessment is development of an airway plan. Important anatomical and physiological features may be identified in an airway assessment which can then have a direct influence on the subsequent airway plan. Managing the predicted difficult airway is usually elective. This allows proper preparation of equipment, assistants, expertise and the environment required for the airway plan. This article will discuss paediatric airway assessment, outline those features that contribute to airway difficulty, and identify indications and risk factors associated with various airway techniques. Key objectives for an airway management plan are to maintain oxygenation and avoid trauma. This involves adopting techniques that avoid hypoxia and provide a high success rate with minimum attempts.     

Nurse-led dexmedetomidine sedation for magnetic resonance imaging in children: a 6-year quality improvement project

We aimed to safely introduce dexmedetomidine into a nurse-led sedation service for magnetic resonance imaging in children. Secondary aims were to increase the number of children eligible for sedation and to increase the actual number of children having sedation performed by our nurse sedation team. We analysed 1768 consecutive intravenous and 219 intranasal dexmedetomidine sedation episodes in infants, children and adolescents having magnetic resonance imaging scans between March 2016 and March 2022. The overall sedation success rate was 98.4%, with a 98.9% success rate for intravenous dexmedetomidine and a 95.0% success rate for intranasal dexmedetomidine. The incidence of scan interruption during intravenous and intranasal dexmedetomidine sedation was 8.8% and 21.9%, respectively. We conclude that paediatric sedation with dexmedetomidine for magnetic resonance scanning is safe and successful.     

Paediatric acute care: Highlights from the Paediatric Acute Care–Advanced Paediatric Life Support Conference,Hobart, 2018

The Paediatric Acute Care Conference (PACC) is an annual conference organised by APLS Australia to advance paediatric acute care topics for clinicians in pre‐hospital medicine, EDs, acute paediatrics, intensive care and anaesthesia. The PACC 2018 was held in Hobart, Tasmania. We provide a summary of some of the presentations.     

Factors associated with the publication outcomes of paediatric proceedings presented at 2010‐2016 the International Associations for Dental Research annual meetings

The International Associations for Dental Research (IADR) annual meeting is one of the most important dental meetings throughout the world, and researches about paediatric dentistry presented in this platform are often used to guide clinical work. To evaluate the publication outcomes of oral and poster paediatric proceedings, which were accepted by the International Associations for Dental Research (IADR), annual meetings from 2010 to 2016 and to analyse the possible factors influencing an abstract's progression to publication. Oral and poster abstracts were retrieved from the official website of IADR (2010‐2016). Searching for subsequent publications was conducted in PubMed and Google Scholar (up to March 2019). Two authors independently selected studies, collected, and analysed data. A total of 1396 abstracts were identified, including 275 oral presentations and 1121 poster presentations. Finally, 606 were published in peer‐reviewed journals, with a publication rate of 43.41%. Abstracts were published earlier if it is from Europe, well funded, presented orally, or with large sample size. The high publication rate of the IADR proceedings supported the impact of IADR annual meetings on paediatric dentistry in the last 10 years.