PCCM Audio Summary - December 2025
The December 2025 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) features articles on the use of inferior vena cava ultrasound parameters to estimate central venous pressure in mechanically ventilated critically ill patients, the impact of social determinants of health on development of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) delirium, the creation of a scoring system to evaluate brain injury on MRI after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and evaluation of arterial morphology after arterial reconstruction after extracorporeal life support. Clinical investigation articles include the influence of body size on stroke volume in response to passive leg raising in spontaneously breathing children; the likelihood of returning to care after discharge home from the PICU; the utility of the Phoenix Sepsis Score; reproducibility of mechanical power equations in critically ill children on mechanical ventilation; evaluation of pediatric cardiac critical care nursing turnover and retention; the development, implementation, and evaluation of a pulmonary embolism clinical management pathway and pulmonary embolism response team; and outcomes of calcium administration in neonates and infants undergoing congenital heart surgery. The original research article explores factors and outcomes associated with fluid overload in patients with moderate and severe traumatic brain injury. The PCCM narrative, titled “Are You Okay?” is a clinician’s perspective on the death of a patient in the PICU. Last, the in memoriam is a tribute to Daniel Levin, MD, and his contributions to the field of pediatric critical care medicine.
