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Pediatric vs Adult or Mixed Trauma Centers in Children Admitted to Hospitals Following Trauma: A Systematic Review
Lynne Moore1,2, Gabrielle Freire3, Alexis F Turgeon1,2,4
1Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit, Trauma-Emergency-Critical Care Medicine, Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec-Université Laval (Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus), Québec City, Québec, Canada.
Insights
Pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) may reduce mortality and CT use in children compared to adult trauma centers (ATCs). However, the evidence is very low certainty, and more research is needed to confirm these findings.
Area of Science:
- Trauma care research
- Pediatric emergency medicine
- Health services research
Background:
- Adult trauma centers (ATCs) improve outcomes for major trauma, but evidence for pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) is limited.
- Understanding the comparative effectiveness of PTCs is crucial for optimizing pediatric trauma care.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) may be associated with reduced mortality, CT use, and operative management for SOI in children compared to ATCs.
- The certainty of evidence supporting these findings is very low, highlighting the need for high-quality future research.
- Future studies should focus on addressing selection and confounding biases to provide more definitive evidence on PTC effectiveness.
Importance:
Adult trauma centers (ATCs) have been shown to decrease injury mortality and morbidity in major trauma, but a synthesis of evidence for pediatric trauma centers (PTCs) is lacking.
Objective:
To assess the effectiveness of PTCs compared with ATCs, combined trauma centers (CTCs), or nondesignated hospitals in reducing mortality and morbidity among children admitted to hospitals following trauma.
Data Sources:
MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science through March 2023.
Study Selection:
Studies comparing PTCs with ATCs, CTCs, or nondesignated hospitals for pediatric trauma populations (aged ≤19 years).
Data Extraction And Synthesis:
This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines. Pairs of reviewers independently extracted data and evaluated risk of bias using the Risk of Bias in Nonrandomized Studies of Interventions tool. A meta-analysis was conducted if more than 2 studies evaluated the same intervention-comparator-outcome and controlled minimally for age and injury severity. Subgroup analyses were planned for age, injury type and severity, trauma center designation level and verification body, country, and year of conduct. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to assess certainty of evidence.
Main Outcome(S) And Measure(S):
Primary outcomes were mortality, complications, functional status, discharge destination, and quality of life. Secondary outcomes were resource use and processes of care, including computed tomography (CT) and operative management of blunt solid organ injury (SOI).
Results:
A total of 56 studies with 286 051 participants were included overall, and 34 were included in the meta-analysis. When compared with ATCs, PTCs were associated with a 41% lower risk of mortality (OR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.46-0.76), a 52% lower risk of CT use (OR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.26-0.89) and a 64% lower risk of operative management for blunt SOI (OR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.23-0.57). The OR for complications was 0.80 (95% CI, 0.41-1.56). There was no association for mortality for older children (OR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.47-1.06), and the association was closer to the null when PTCs were compared with CTCs (OR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.53-0.99). Results remained similar for other subgroup analyses. GRADE certainty of evidence was very low for all outcomes.
Conclusions And Relevance:
In this systematic review and meta-analysis, results suggested that PTCs were associated with lower odds of mortality, CT use, and operative management for SOI than ATCs for children admitted to hospitals following trauma, but certainty of evidence was very low. Future studies should strive to address selection and confounding biases.
