Educational content from recorded physician discussions — not medical advice. Always talk to your child's care team about your child's situation.
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Places doing a lot of airway reconstruction should have a clinical protocol in place for screening before surgery and treatment of MRSA colonization. — Alessandro de Alarcon, Preventing MRSA infections in pediatric airway surgery through preoperative screening · 7:24
Preventing MRSA infections in pediatric airway surgery through preoperative screening
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Interview with Alessandro de Alarcon, MD, MPH, author of Screening and Treatment of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Children Undergoing Open Airway Surgery
podcast8:21 · Oct 2026
Practice patterns in the management of post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage: An American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology survey.
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To evaluate practice patterns amongst pediatric otolaryngologists in the management of post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage. A cross-sectional survey of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology membership was administered electronically. T
article · Oct 2026
Imaging button battery ingestions and insertions in children: a 15-year single-center review
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Background: Recent studies have shown an increase in morbidity associated with button battery ingestions in children. Objective: To perform a comprehensive, imaging-focused review of all patients with confirmed button battery ingestions/ins
article · Oct 2026
Airway plaque presenting after alteration of immunosuppression in a pediatric patient remote from heart transplantation
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Success after solid organ transplantation is dependent on the proper balance of immunosuppression to prevent rejection of the allograft while limiting the risk of developing infections and malignancy. We present a 9-year-old girl, remote fr
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Preventing MRSA infections in pediatric airway surgery through preoperative screening
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) can cause serious infections in skin and surgical wound sites.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon0:35 ↗
Studies in the last decade show an increasing number of MRSA infections both in the community and during surgical procedures globally.
epidemiologicalAlessandro de Alarcon0:58 ↗
The increase in resistant bacterial strains is thought to be due to more frequent antibiotic use than in the past.
opinionAlessandro de Alarcon1:14 ↗
At Cincinnati Children's, a series of patients had severe MRSA infections that led to failure of their airway reconstruction.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon1:27 ↗
The Cincinnati protocol screens patients for MRSA prior to airway surgery and treats colonized patients with antibiotics before and during surgery to prevent surgical site infections.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon1:46 ↗
MRSA colonization means patients have the bacteria growing in their skin or some body site but it is not causing an infection.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon1:46 ↗
Studies show MRSA surgical site infections increase hospital admission costs by up to approximately $62,000.
epidemiologicalAlessandro de Alarcon3:00 ↗
MRSA infections can cause rib grafts used in airway reconstructions to die, leading to complete operation failure.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon3:19 ↗
A typical airway reconstruction runs around $90,000 in hospital charges or costs.
epidemiologicalAlessandro de Alarcon3:34 ↗
Children undergoing airway reconstruction may be in the hospital from anywhere from a couple of weeks to about a month.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon3:34 ↗
Surgical site infections have historically been looked at as an accident or something that's not preventable.
opinionAlessandro de Alarcon4:31 ↗
About one-third of children with tracheostomies screened at Cincinnati Children's are colonized with MRSA.
epidemiologicalAlessandro de Alarcon5:19 ↗
Other surgical practices that have published papers about screening and treatment programs typically consider high-risk patient populations as having 8 to 10% MRSA colonization.
epidemiologicalAlessandro de Alarcon5:19 ↗
The study design could not prove that the Cincinnati protocol is the perfect protocol.
opinionAlessandro de Alarcon7:07 ↗
The study showed there was not any increase in MRSA infections in patients that were MRSA positive who received treatment under the protocol.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon7:40 ↗
Children with tracheostomies undergoing airway reconstruction are a high-risk patient population that commonly are colonized with MRSA.
clinicalAlessandro de Alarcon6:48 ↗
Places doing a lot of airway reconstruction should have a clinical protocol in place for screening before surgery and treatment of MRSA colonization.
guidelineAlessandro de Alarcon7:24 ↗
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