ReviewChest2024
Time-Limited Trials for Patients With Critical Illness: A Review of the Literature.
Review in Chest, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- Admission to intensive care: a matter of shared decision-making in the very old?European geriatric medicine · 2026Review
- Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Intensive Care Unit Consultation.Journal of palliative medicine · 2026Article
- Perspectives of Black and White Family Members on Medical Decision Making for ICU Patients.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Surviving Sepsis Campaign: international guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock 2026.Intensive care medicine · 2026Article
- Sliding doors at the bedside: conditional outcomes and moral judgments in end-of-life care.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Review
- Time-limited trials for acute dialysis decision-making for critically ill older patients: rationale, communication strategies, and future research.Current opinion in nephrology and hypertension · 2026Review
- Clinician perspectives on utilizing time-limited trials among patients with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A qualitative study.Resuscitation plus · 2026Article
- Long-term frailty trajectory in older ICU survivors requiring mechanical ventilation: a prospective cohort study in Norway.Annals of intensive care · 2026Article
- "Do Everything" versus realistic surgical interventions: navigating the road to shared decision-making in trauma surgery.Trauma surgery & acute care open · 2026Review
- Humanizing care in the ICU: implementation of the Get to Know Me Board in patient care.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Disorders of consciousness diagnosis, interventions, and prognostication for the intensivist: Report of the 2025 ISICEM roundtable.Intensive care medicine · 2026Review
- Optimising time-limited trials in acute respiratory failure: a multicentre focused ethnography protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
- [Changes in treatment goals and palliative care in the intensive care unit-when and how?]Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2025Review
- Characterizing the Documentation of Time-Limited Trials in Goals of Care Notes.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2025Article
- Accuracy of Intensivist Prognostications of Deterioration within the Intensive Care Unit and Development of Persistent Critical Illness: A Prospective Cohort Study.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2025Article
- When Good Intentions Meet Predictive Uncertainty: Prognostication in the Intensive Care Unit.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2025Article
- Time-Limited Trials in Intensive Care Medicine: A Tool for Avoiding Inappropriate Treatment.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2025Review
- Timing of neuroprognostication in the ICU.Current opinion in critical care · 2025Review
- Outcome Predictions at Two Time Points among Surrogates and Physicians of Mechanically Ventilated Patients.Critical care explorations · 2025Article
- Unclear Trajectory and Uncertain Benefit: Creating a Lexicon for Clinical Uncertainty in Patients with Critical or Advanced Illness Using a Delphi Consensus Process.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
topic importanceSince the 1990s, time-limited trials have been described as an approach to navigate uncertain benefits and limits of life-sustaining therapies in patients with critical illness. In this review, we aim to synthesize the evidence on time-limited trials in critical care, establish what is known, and highlight important knowledge gaps. REVIEW
findingsWe identified 18 empirical studies and 15 ethical analyses about time-limited trials in patients with critical illness. Observational studies suggest time-limited trials are part of current practice in ICUs in the United States, but their use varies according to unit and physician factors. Some ICU physicians are familiar with, endorse, and have participated in time-limited trials, and some older adults appear to favor time-limited trial strategies over indefinite life-sustaining therapy or care immediately focused on comfort. When time-limited trials are used, they are often implemented incompletely and challenged by systematic barriers (eg, continually rotating ICU staff). Predictive modeling studies support prevailing clinical wisdom that prognostic uncertainty decreases over time in the ICU for some patients. One study prospectively comparing usual ICU care with an intervention designed to support time-limited trials yielded promising preliminary results. Ethical analyses describe time-limited trials as a pragmatic approach within the longstanding discussion about withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapies. SUMMARY: Time-limited trials are endorsed by physicians, align with the priorities of some older adults, and are part of current practice. Substantial efforts are needed to test their impact on patient-centered outcomes, improve their implementation, and maximize their potential benefit.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.