Pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome in a Moroccan intensive care unit: a retrospective observational study of 23 cases

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening condition despite medical development. Unlike adult, ARDS, in pediatric population, has been recently defined in the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury Consensus Conference (PALICC), 2015. We conduct a retrospective descriptive study, in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of Hassan II University Hospital during a period of 2 years (2019 to 2021) in which we included 23 pediatric cases of ARDS defined using 2012 Berlin criteria. They represent 2.7% of all patients admitted in our unit (23 patients of 850 admissions), with a male predominance 17 males/6 females, the median of age was 4.6 years-old (2 months to 14 years-old). Pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS) cases were stratified as mild in 13% (n=3), moderate in 52% (n=12), and severe in 35% (n=8). The etiologies were of pulmonary origin (pneumonia, aspiration, pulmonary contusion, and foreign body) in 79% of cases (n=18), and extra-pulmonary origin (sepsis, burn and major trauma) in 21% (n=5). The management was based on lung protective invasive mechanical ventilation (95%, n=22), Prone positioning was applied (26%, n=6), inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) was used in (35%, n=8), recruitment maneuvers (56%, n=13), neuromuscular blockade (NMB) (74%, n=17) and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in 1 case. The outcome was favorable in 65% (n=15) with a mean PICU-stay of 20 days (SD=16 days). Overall mortality rate was 35% (n=8), and 100% (n=5) in case of extrapulmonary (indirect) etiologies. It was proportional to the disease severity, 50% (4 of 8 cases), 33% (4 of 12 cases), and no death respectively in severe, moderate, and mild PARDS. PARDS in our context is a serious problem as it is more frequent in children < 5 years, a population considered as fragile, with a high mortality rate especially in indirect lung etiologies of PARDS.