Welcome to LearnPICU.UK. This site contains summaries of core topics in pediatric critical care medicine, tailored to the practice of critical care in the United Kingdom. Each topic also has associated practice board-type questions, supporting references, and summaries of seminal articles. Whether you are a medical student or a seasoned intensivist, we hope you find the resources here helpful!

You can also visit the sister site, LearnPICU.com for more US centric information.

Recent News

September 10

TAXI (Pediatric Critical Care Transfusion and Anemia Expertise Initiative) Guidelines for PRBC Transfusion in Critically Ill Children now published

July 18

PARAMEDIC2 Trial demonstrates improvement in 30 day survival for adults with out of hospital cardiac arrest treated with epinephrine as opposed to placebo (3.2 % vs. 2.4% survival at 30 days, p=0.02) but no difference in survival with favorable neurological outcome (2.2% vs 1.9%, OR 1.18 with CI 0.86 to 1.61) and higher rates of severe neurological impairment (31% vs 17.8%)

June 14

In a multicenter RCT by Kuppermann et al and the PECARN network of 1255 children with DKA, there was no difference in neurological outcomes based on sodium content (1/2 NS vs. NS) and rate of fluid resuscitation. (Kuppermann et al, NEJM 2018)

May 25

Combes et al, in a randomized multicenter RCT of 249 adult patients with severe ARDS (P/F <50 for 3 hours, P/F <80 for 6 hours, or pH <7.25 and pCO2 >60 for 6 hours) demonstrates no significant difference in mortality utilizing VV ECMO vs. conventional mechanical ventilation with crossover (to ECMO) (RR 0.76, 0.55-1.04, p=0.09). (Combes et al, NEJM 2018)

April 15

Ganesan et al, in a single center RCT of 52 pediatric patients (stopped early due to harm in intervention group) with ARDS treated with APRV vs. conventional ventilation find a two fold risk of mortality (multivariable adjusted RR 2.02, p =0.05) in the APRV group. (Ganesan et al, AJRCCM 2018)

March 12

In a systematic analysis in Journal of Intensive Care, Wolbrink et al cite LearnPICU as one of the top ten websites in critical care medicine education today!

We hope you find the site helpful and welcome any comments or suggestions to improve its content and usefulness. Please contact Dr. Kevin Kuo, editor of the site, with any comments, questions, or suggestions.