ReviewDeutsches Arzteblatt international2025
Time-Limited Trials in Intensive Care Medicine: A Tool for Avoiding Inappropriate Treatment.
Review in Deutsches Arzteblatt international, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- [Ethically challenging determination of treatment goals in the intensive care unit: reasons, frequency and possible solutions].Die Anaesthesiologie · 2026Review
- Invasive ventilation and mortality in critically ill nonagenarians: a retrospective cohort study.European journal of medical research · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundApproximately 16% of patients treated in intensive care units do not outlive the treatment. Among patients in intensive care units who undergo mechanical ventilation or dialysis, only half survive longer than six months. Prognostication is unreliable in the individual case. Time-limited trials (TLT) may help prevent inappropriate treatment, particularly for older and chronically ill patients.
methodsThis review is based on pertinent publications that were retrieved by a selective search in the PubMed and Scopus databases and the Google Scholar searching service.
results19 empirical studies and 15 medical-ethical analyses on time-limited trials were identified, as well as expert opinions, guidelines, and review articles. If the prognosis of a patient in intensive care is poor or unclear, the patient or representative can agree with the treating team on a trial of predefined treatment, for a limited period of time, to attain objectifiable, individual therapeutic goals. These goals are set and assessed with the aid of scores used in intensive care medicine, along with the patient's individual values and resources. TLTs enable more accurate prognostication based on the observed effect of treatment in the individual patient, so that a joint decision can be taken on whether to provide further treatment with curative intent or to switch to palliative care. In this way, inappropriate treatment can be avoided-both over- and undertreatment. Initial findings suggest that TLT can identify patients who will not benefit from continued intensive treatment.
conclusionTLTs are well founded in medical ethics and address a central problem in intensive care medicine, namely, the question of individual benefit. Only sparse empirical data on TLTs are available to date. TLTs should be standardized and evaluated in prospective studies to determine whether their expected benefit can truly be achieved in the complex real world of intensive care medicine.
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.