PCCM Audio Summary - April 2026
The April 2026 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) features two late-breaker articles, one investigating the association of plasma linoleic acid with pediatric sepsis phenotype D and acute kidney injury and one examining viral and host-related inflammatory response factors in critical bronchiolitis. This issue highlights two new clinical practice guidelines: Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock in children and guidelines on care and management of pediatric and neonatal patients at the end of life. There are five clinical investigation studies: 1) evaluating the association between postoperative EEG findings and 24-month neurodevelopmental outcomes in neonates with congenital heart disease, 2) assessing the performance of heart rate variability in discriminating mortality and poor neurologic outcomes, 3) using volumetric methods to estimate transpulmonary driving pressure and lung-specific elastance, 4) comparing food insecurity between PICU and medicine ward settings, and 5) validating lung ultrasound scores in patients with acute respiratory failure and associations with outcomes.
