ArticleCritical care (London, England)2013
Randomized controlled trials in pediatric critical care: a scoping review.
Article in Critical care (London, England), 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 116 citations in OpenAlex.
- Implementing electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Chronic Kidney Disease: a qualitative systematic review of barriers, enablers, and mechanisms.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2026Pooled it
- When Tech Meets Touch: Multistakeholder Perspectives and Implementation Strategies for eHealth in Chronic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review Using Computational Linguistics.Journal of nursing management · 2026Pooled it
- Videolaryngoscopy versus direct laryngoscopy for paediatric tracheal intubation: a systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Pooled it
- Randomized controlled trials in children's heart surgery in the 21st century: a systematic review.European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery · 2018Pooled it
- Primary Outcome Measures in Pediatric Septic Shock Trials: A Systematic Review.Pediatric critical care medicine : a journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies · 2017Pooled it
- Conservative versus liberal oxygenation targets in critically ill children: the Oxy-PICU RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2026Trial
- A phase II dose evaluation pilot feasibility randomized controlled trial of cholecalciferol in critically ill children with vitamin D deficiency (VITdAL-PICU study).BMC pediatrics · 2023Trial
- CALIPSO: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Calfactant for Acute Lung Injury in Pediatric Stem Cell and Oncology Patients.Biology of blood and marrow transplantation : journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation · 2018Trial
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of Corticosteroids in Pediatric Septic Shock: A Pilot Feasibility Study.Pediatric critical care medicine : a journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies · 2017Trial
- Progress and challenges in development of minimum essential dataset for disease surveillance through a One Health lens: a scoping review.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2026Article
- Developing an adaptive paediatric intensive care unit platform trial with key stakeholders: a qualitative study.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Digital symptom management interventions for people with chronic kidney disease: a scoping review based on the UK Medical Research Council Framework.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Assessing the impact of risk-based data monitoring on outcomes for a paediatric multicentre randomised controlled trial.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2024Article
- Parents' Experiences Caring for a Child after a Critical Illness: A Qualitative Study.Journal of pediatric intensive care · 2024Article
- Reporting of social determinants of health in randomized controlled trials conducted in the pediatric intensive care unit.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Article
- Designing a national pediatric critical care database: a Delphi consensus study.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2023Article
- Pediatric intensive care unit admissions network-rationale, framework and method of operation of a nationwide collaborative pediatric intensive care research network in Germany.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Article
- Reverse Bayesian Implications of p-Values Reported in Critical Care Randomized Trials.Journal of intensive care medicine · 2022Article
- Consent models in Canadian critical care randomized controlled trials: a scoping review.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionEvidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is required to guide treatment of critically ill children, but the number of RCTs available is limited and the publications are often difficult to find. The objectives of this review were to systematically identify RCTs in pediatric critical care and describe their methods and reporting.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS and CENTRAL (from inception to April 16, 2013) and reference lists of included RCTs and relevant systematic reviews. We included published RCTs administering any intervention to children in a pediatric ICU. We excluded trials conducted in neonatal ICUs, those enrolling exclusively preterm infants, and individual patient crossover trials. Pairs of reviewers independently screened studies for eligibility, assessed risk of bias, and abstracted data. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus.
resultsWe included 248 RCTs: 45 (18%) were multicentered and 14 (6%) were multinational. Trials most frequently enrolled both medical and surgical patients (43%) but postoperative cardiac surgery was the single largest population studied (19%). The most frequently evaluated types of intervention were medications (63%), devices (11%) and nutrition (8%). Laboratory or physiological measurements were the most frequent type of primary outcomes (18%). Half of these trials (50%) reported blinding. Of the 107 (43%) trials that reported an a priori sample size, 34 (32%) were stopped early. The median number of children randomized per trial was 49 and ranged from 6 to 4,947. The frequency of RCT publications increased at a mean rate of 0.7 RCTs per year (P<0.001) from 1 to 20 trials per year.
conclusionsThis scoping review identified the available RCTs in pediatric critical care and made them accessible to clinicians and researchers (http://epicc.mcmaster.ca). Most focused on medications and intermediate or surrogate outcomes, were single-centered and were conducted in North America and Western Europe. The results of this review underscore the need for trials with rigorous methodology, appropriate outcome measures, and improved quality of reporting to ensure that high quality evidence exists to support clinical decision-making in this vulnerable population.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.