One hundred useful references in pediatric cardiac intensive care: the 2012 update

The specialty of pediatric cardiac critical care has undergone rapid scientific and clinical growth in the last 25 years. The Board of Directors of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society assembled an updated list of sentinel references focused on the critical care of children with congenital and acquired heart disease. We encouraged board members to select articles that have influenced and informed their current practice or helped to establish the standard of care. The objective of this article is to provide clinicians with a compilation and brief summary of these updated 100 useful references.

The list of 'One Hundred Useful References for Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care' (2004) and relevant literature to the practice of cardiac intensive care.

A subset of Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society board members compiled the initial list of useful references in 2004, which served as the basis of the new updated list. Suggestions for relevant articles were submitted by the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society board members and selected pediatric cardiac intensivists with an interest in this project following the Society's meeting in 2010. Articles were considered for inclusion if they were named in the original list from 2004 or were suggested by Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society board members and published before December 31, 2011.

Following submission of the complete list by the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society board and contributing Society members, articles were complied by the two co-first authors (D.A., D.K.). The authors also performed Medline searches to ensure comprehensive inclusion of all relevant articles. The final list was then submitted to the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society board members, who ranked each publication.

Rankings were compiled and the top 100 articles with the highest scores were selected for inclusion in this publication. The two co-first authors (D.A., D.K.) reviewed all existing summaries and developed summaries of the newly submitted articles.

An updated compilation of 100 useful references for the critical care of children with congenital and acquired heart disease has been compiled and summarized here. Clinicians and trainees may wish to use this document as a reference for education in this complex and challenging subspecialty.