Are you a Health Professional? Jump over to the doctors only platform. Click Here

Under-skin rehydration injection safe, effective, less painful for children in ER

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

An experimental, under-the-skin injection used to correct dehydration in children brought to the emergency room was shown safe, effective and less painful than the standard intravenous therapy, in a study that appears in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics online.

"When oral rehydration does not work, one of our only options is to administer fluids intravenously," said Dr Coburn Allen, assistant professor of pediatrics, in both the sections of emergency medicine and infectious diseases, at Baylor College of Medicine and the study’s lead author. "With young children, this is not easy because their veins are smaller and harder to find. This can be very painful for young children."

Dehydration occurs after the child has had bouts of prolonged vomiting or diarrhoea. When this happens, more fluids are lost than consumed.

"It can become very serious and require hospitalisation," said Allen.


Transmitting lost fluids

The experimental injection is aided by the enzyme hyaluronidase, a genetically-altered spreading agent that helps increase the body’s ability to transmit lost fluids back into its system.

In the study that took place in the Texas Children’s Hospital emergency room, doctors placed a catheter under the skin and injected a small amount of hyaluronidase, followed by an infusion of fluids for the next hour. This form of rehydration therapy was continued, as needed, for up to 72 hours.


Easy to perform procedure


The researchers found that 94.1 percent of 51 children were successfully hydrated and did not need an alternative form of rehydration. They said that 96 percent of the doctors who took part found the procedure easy to perform and 90 percent parents were satisfied or very satisfied.

Funding for this research came from Baxter Healthcare Corporation.

Other institutions involved in the study include Texas Children’s Hospital, St. John’s Mercy Children’s Hospital, St. Louis, MO, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, Memorial Children’s Hospital, South Bend, IN, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Phoenix, AZ, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Hartford, CT, Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, FL, Staten Island University Hospital, Staten Island, NY and Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Deerfield, IL.

(Source: Baylor College of Medicine: Pediatrics: October 2009)


Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Dates

Posted On: 13 October, 2009
Modified On: 16 January, 2014

Tags



Created by: myVMC