Long-term health status in childhood survivors of meningococcal septic shock.

OBJECTIVE: To assess long-term health status in patients who survived meningococcal septic shock in childhood.

DESIGN: Medical and psychological follow-up of a cross-sectional cohort.

SETTING: Pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of a tertiary care university hospital.

PARTICIPANTS: All consecutive patients with septic shock and purpura who required intensive care between 1988 and 2001. Intervention Patients and their parents were invited to our follow-up clinic 4 to 16 years after PICU discharge.

OUTCOME MEASURES: Health status was assessed with a standard medical interview, physical examination, renal function test, and the Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (HUI2) and 3 (HUI3).

RESULTS: One hundred twenty patients (response rate 71%) participated in the follow-up (median age at PICU admission, 3.1 years; median follow-up interval, 9.8 years; median age at follow-up, 14.5 years). Thirty-five percent of patients had 1 or more of the following neurological impairments: severe mental retardation with epilepsy (3%), hearing loss (2%), chronic headache (28%), and focal neurological signs (6%), like paresis of 1 arm. One of the 16 patients with septic shock-associated acute renal failure at PICU admission showed signs of mild chronic renal failure (glomerular filtration rate, 62 mL/min/1.73 m(2); proteinuria; and hypertension). Scores were significantly lower on nearly all HUI2 and HUI3 attributes compared with Dutch population data, indicating poorer health in these patients.

CONCLUSIONS: In patients who survived meningococcal septic shock in childhood, one-third showed long-term neurological impairments, ranging from mild to severe and irreversible. Patients reported poorer general health as measured by HUI2 and HUI3.