Weaning From Mechanical Ventilation After Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Launched by ALEXANDRIA UNIVERSITY · Jul 14, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is looking at the process of safely taking children off mechanical breathing machines after heart surgery. After surgery to fix heart problems, many children need help breathing through a machine, but doctors want to remove this support as soon as it’s safe. The study focuses on finding the best way to do this quickly and safely, because staying on the breathing machine longer than needed can lead to complications like lung infections or injury to the airway.

Children aged 2 to 10 years who have had heart surgery and meet certain health checks—like breathing with less machine support, having good oxygen levels, and being pain-free—might be eligible to join. However, children who have been on a breathing machine for more than two days, are unstable, have low consciousness, or have certain types of heart surgeries won’t be able to participate. If a child joins the study, their medical team will carefully watch how they are taken off the breathing machine to help speed up recovery while keeping them safe. This trial hasn’t started recruiting yet but aims to improve care for kids recovering from heart surgery.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • 1. Age 2-10years.
• • 2. Both sex.
• • 3. after fulfilling weaning criteria
• • 4. being pain free (observational pain/discomfort scale \< 4). the weaning criteria; which include: low mandatory ventilator rate \[6-8\] or less; fraction of inspired oxygen (FIO2) ≤ 40; level of positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) \[3-5 cmH2O\] guided by pressure/volume loop; reversal of the cause of postoperative mechanical ventilation; oxygenation index (OI) (mean air way pressure × FIO2/PaO2) \< 5; dynamic compliance (Cdyn) \> 1 ml/ cmH2O/kg
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • 1. Duration of mechanical ventilation is more than 48 hours
• • 2. Patients on high inotropic support (unstable hemodynamics)
• • 3. Patients with disturbed conscious level
• • 4. Patients with palliative cardiac shunting procedures (e.g., BT shunt, Glenn shunt).