Pattern of admissions into pediatric intensive care unit in a tertiary care cancer center in Southern India

Background: Pediatric intensive care unit(PICU) is an important component of the supportive care for the children being treated for cancer. The aim of this study was to review the commoner malignancies requiring PICU admissions at our centre, the reason for PICU admission, their microbiological data and to have a brief idea of outcomes of each individual malignant case admitted to PICU. Methods: A retrospective review of the cases who were admitted in PICU at Kidwai memorial institute of oncology, Bangalore from July 2017 to December 2017 was done. Data was collected from the patients case files and the PICU registry. Results: There were a total of 127 cases admitted to our PICU. The mean age of the children admitted was 8.3 years ranging from 8 months to 14 years. There were 79 boys and 48 girls with male: female sex ratio of 1.6:1. The duration of stay in PICU of the children ranged from 1 day to 30 days. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia was the most common malignancy requiring PICU admission and febrile neutropenia with sepsis being the most common cause. Totally there were 39 deaths in our PICU during the study period and approximately 50% of the deaths were due to sepsis. Conclusions: Children with hematologic malignancies formed a major part of our PICU admissions. Sepsis has still been the most common cause warranting intensive unit care in our setting like any other developing country and also of the mortality.