Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39677385›Full record

ArticlePaediatrics & child health2024

The Critical Lens: It is time to start using the right test for febrile young infants.

Adiel Marom, Jesse Papenburg, Brett Burstein

Erratum issuedAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Paediatrics & child health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Adiel MaromDivision of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Montreal Children's Hospital, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Jesse PapenburgDivision of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Montreal Children's Hospital, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4232-871X
Brett BursteinDepartment of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1107-9514

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Fever among infants in the first months of life is a common clinical conundrum facing all clinicians who treat children. Most well-appearing febrile young infants have viral illnesses. However, it is critical to identify those at risk of invasive bacterial infections, specifically bacteremia and bacterial meningitis. Clinicians must balance the risks of missing these infections against the harms of over-investigation. Procalcitonin testing is currently the best diagnostic test available to help guide management, and the Canadian Paediatric Society Position Statement on the management of febrile young infants recommends procalcitonin-based risk stratification. However, in many clinical settings, procalcitonin is either unavailable or has a turnaround time that is too long to aid decision-making. Clinicians who care for febrile young infants must have rapid access to procalcitonin results to provide best-evidence, guideline-adherent care. The wider availability of this test is essential to reduce unnecessary invasive testing, hospitalizations, and antibiotic exposure and could reduce system-wide resource utilization.

Indexed as

FeverInvasive bacterial infectionProcalcitonin

Identifiers

PMID39677385
PMCPMC11638080

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.