Background: Pharmacologic therapy for patent ductus arteriosus closure is not consistently successful. Surgical ligation (SL) or transcatheter closure (TC) may be needed. Large multicenter analyses comparing outcomes and resource use between SL and TC are lacking. We hypothesized that patients undergoing TC have improved outcomes compared with SL, including mortality, hospital and intensive care unit length of stay, and mechanical ventilation. Methods and Results: Using the 2016 to 2020 Pediatric Health Information System database, characteristics, outcomes, and charges of patients aged <1 year who underwent TC or SL were analyzed. A total of 678 inpatients undergoing TC (n=503) or SL (n=175) were identified. Surgical patients were younger (0.1 versus 0.53 years; P <0.001) and more premature (60% versus 20.3%; P <0.001). Surgical patients had higher mortality (1.7% versus 0%; P =0.02). Using inverse probability of treatment weighting by the propensity score, multivariable‐adjusted analyses demonstrated favorable outcomes in TC: intensive care unit admission rates (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.2; 95% CI, 0.11–0.32; P <0.001); mechanical ventilation rates (adjusted OR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.19–0.56; P <0.001); and shorter hospital (adjusted coefficient, 2 days shorter; 95% CI, 1.3–2.7; P <0.001) and postoperative (adjusted coefficient, 1.2 days shorter; 95% CI, 0.1–2.3; P =0.039) stays. Overall charges and readmission rates were similar. Among premature neonates and infants, hospital (adjusted difference in medians, 4 days; 95% CI, 1.7–6.3 days; P <0.001) and postoperative stays (adjusted difference in medians, 3 days; 95% CI, 1.1–4.9 days; P =0.002) were longer for SL. Conclusions: TC is associated with lower mortality and reduced length of stay compared with SL. Rates of TC continue to increase compared with SL.

Advances made in pediatric cardiology, cardiac surgery and critical care have significantly improved the survival rate of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) leading to an increase in children with CHD presenting for noncardiac surgical procedures. This study aims (1) to describe the trend and perioperative mortality rates in patients with CHD undergoing noncardiac surgical procedures at children’s hospitals over the past 5 years and (2) to describe the patient characteristics and the most common type of surgical procedures. The Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) is an administrative database that contains inpatient, observation, and outpatient surgical data from 52 freestanding children’s hospitals. Thirty-nine of the 52 hospitals submitted data on all types of patient encounters for the duration of the study from 2015 to 2019. The total numbers of non-cardiac surgical encounters among patients with history of a CHD diagnosis significantly increased each year from 38,272 in 2015 to 45,993 in 2019 (P < 0.001). Despite the increase in case numbers, there has been a significant decline in mortality rates to the most recent incidence of 1.06% in 2019. Careful patient selection and medical optimization of patients aligned with specific expertise at dedicated children’s hospitals may lead to improvement in mortality rate. Future studies comparing the outcomes of patients with cardiac disease based on hospital type and volume as well as type of providers may help determine the future of care including potential need for regionalization of noncardiac care for this vulnerable patient population.

Patient sedation and analgesia on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is vital for safety and comfort. However, adsorption to the circuit may alter drug pharmacokinetics and remains poorly characterized. This study characterizes drug adsorption of morphine, fentanyl, midazolam, and dexmedetomidine in anex vivoinfant ECMO circuit utilizing polymethylpentene (PMP) membrane oxygenator (MO) with protein-bounded polyvinylchloride (PVC) tubing. Twelve closed-loopex vivoECMO circuits were prepared using P.h.i.s.i.o (phosphorylcholine)-coated PVC tubing (Sorin Group USA, Inc.) and a Quadrox-iD pediatric polymethylpentene MO (Maquet Cardiopulmonary AG). Once the circuits were primed and running, a single medication was injected as a bolus into the circuit with three circuits per drug. Drug samples were drawn following injection, at 2, 5, 15, 30, 60, 120 minutes and at 4, 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours and analyzed using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Compared with morphine, the other drugs are highly sequestered with fentanyl 68.5%, dexmedetomidine 50.8%, and midazolam 26.2% affecting the availability of free drug in the circuit. Sequestration of fentanyl, midazolam, and dexmedetomidine in an ECMO circuit with P.h.i.s.i.o-coated PVC tubing and PMP MO may limit drug delivery to infants. Futurein vivostudies are needed to determine the clinical impact of sequestration.