Comprehensive Care of Critically Ill Infants and Children

Dear Colleagues,

The landscape of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine has changed remarkably, on a global level, over the last few decades, allowing infants and children to survive illnesses and injuries previously associated with a poor outcome. 

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (often abbreviated as PICU) is a hospital area dedicated to the care of critically ill infants, children, adolescents, and in some cases, young adults. Pediatric Intensive Care Units are now found in most countries, although resource availability and allocation vary significantly, even within cities in the same country. Collaboration between experts in pediatric critical care medicine has promoted the creation of important guidelines, for example, for the treatment of septic shock and traumatic brain injuries. These and other important guidelines are periodically  revised and updated as indicated, and adapted to locally-available resources. Specialized pediatric intensive care units have also appeared: the first ones, of course, focused on perioperative care of children with congenital heart disease.  Larger hospitals now have intensive care professionals with sub-specialty interests and expertise and, sometimes,  the ability to geographically cohort critically ill Oncology, Neurology, Pulmonary Medicine, and severely injured children.

This Special Issue is focused on dissemination of state-of-the art global pediatric critical care, tapping on the experience of seasoned experts in the field, emerging clinical and research talent, and educators.

Topics to be addressed in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to :

• Designing Environments for Critically-Ill children, their Families, and their Teams;
• Critical Care for Children with Life-Threatening Injuries;
• Neurological Critical Care
• Advances in Perioperative Cardiac Critical Care and Heart Failure;
• Contemporary Support Following Cardiac Arrest in Children
• Advances in Non-Invasive Ventilatory Support in Pediatrics;
• Comprehensive Management of Infants with Severe Sequelae of Prematurity;
• Management of Primary and Secondary Pulmonary Hypertension in Pediatrics;
• Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation and Emerging Paracorporeal Therapies in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Evidence-Based Management of Diabetes Mellitus and other Endocrine Disorders in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Management of Septic Shock and Life-Threatening Infections in Children;
• Containment and Management of Emerging Pathogens in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Prevention and Management of Acute Kidney Injury in Children;
• Prevention and Management of Acute Liver Injury in Children
• Critical Care of Children with Underlying Malignancies;
• Delirium and Psychiatric Emergencies in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Pediatric Rapid Response Teams in Pediatrics: Best Practices
• Triage and Transport of Critically-ill Children
• Complex Medical Decision-Making in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine;
• Informatics in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
• Critical Care for Children in Resource-Constrained Environments
• Promoting Resilience in Professionals Caring for the Critically-Ill
• Primary Palliative Care for Pediatric Critical Care Clinicians
• Narrative Medicine in Pediatric Critical Care
• Simulation in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Educating the Next Generation of Pediatric Critical Care Clinicians

We invite contributors to send expert, evidence-based opinion in their fields of interest, original research articles, clinical review articles, special articles, and illustrative case reports. I look forward to receiving your contribution.

Dr. Regina Okhuysen-Cawley
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• pediatric critical care medicine
• neurologic critical care
• perioperative cardiac critical care and heart failure
• non-invasive ventilatory support in pediatrics
• infants with severe sequelae of prematurity
• primary and secondary pulmonary hypertension in pediatrics
• diabetes mellitus in pediatrics
• septic shock and life-threatening infections
• management of severe infections due to emerging global pathogens
• acute kidney injury in children
• critical care of children with underlying malignancies
• complex medical decision-making
• primary palliative care