Bubble Wrap PLUS – August 2024

Can’t get enough of Bubble Wrap? The Bubble Wrap Plus is a monthly Paediatric Journal Club reading list from Professor Jaan Toelen (University Hospitals Leuven) and Dr Anke Raaijmakers (Sydney Children’s Hospital). 

This comprehensive list is developed from 34 journals, including major and subspecialty paediatric journals. We suggest this list can help you discover relevant or interesting articles for your local journal club or allow you to keep a finger on the pulse of paediatric research.

Many of us are enjoying the summer holidays and could consider a daily intake of clinical literature somewhat ‘excessive’. To accommodate those concerns, the journal club’s list has been kept fairly short. On the other hand, we would like to prevent acute withdrawal symptoms in some colleagues, so we would advise them to at least have a look at the following studies.

The recent COVID pandemic caught mankind by surprise. Prevention measures are necessary to ensure that children are protected from unintentional further harm. In the current issue of JAMA Pediatrics, Roumeliotis and colleagues found that stricter restrictions resulted in more hospitalisations for adolescent eating disorders. The authors suggest that future pandemic preparedness should consider implications for youths at risk for eating disorders and their support needs.

In this month’s issue of the European Journal of Pediatrics, Ruelas and colleagues published a meta-analysis on the role of green-banana-based treatments for diarrhoea. The use of green banana-based foods as a complement to standard treatment in children was associated with a faster resolution of diarrhoea. It may also aid in the treatment of persistent diarrhoea. We need more trials to confirm these data, but it is a potentially promising and low-cost alternative for children all over the world. 

Providing the best bridging care to newborns in need of tertiary care is of utmost importance. Morris and colleagues investigated the efficacy of refrigerated gel packs for therapeutic hypothermia in neonatal retrieval. Unfortunately, achieving and maintaining therapeutic during neonatal retrieval with gel packs proved challenging. Target temperature optimisation is necessary to give these infants the best possible care. The same topic was discussed in the European Journal of Pediatrics by Garnaud and colleagues. They used servo-controlled therapeutic hypothermia (versus passive hypothermia) and found no major difference in outcome. More studies on this topic will surely follow.  

The Journal of Pediatrics published an article on education interventions to reduce diagnostic errors in burned or bruised patients suspected of abuse. The authors showed that specific education interventions substantially reduced diagnostic error in differentiating the presence versus absence of suspicion for abuse in children with burn and bruise injuries. Several case-based variables (older age, mechanism of injury given, location of injury) were associated with diagnostic error, and these variables can be used to close specific skill gaps for clinicians in an emergency department setting to avoid further harm.

You will find the list is broken down into four sections:

If we have missed out on something useful or you think other articles are absolutely worth sharing, please add them in the comments!