SynthesisCritical care (London, England)2025
Haloperidol in treating delirium, reducing mortality, and preventing delirium occurrence: Bayesian and frequentist meta-analyses.
Synthesis in Critical care (London, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Challenges and strategies in the care of older adults across the continuum of intensive and post-intensive care medicine.Intensive care medicine · 2026Review
- Bayesian reanalysis reinforces the potential mortality benefit of TNF-α inhibitors in COVID-19: a methodological perspective.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
- Haloperidol is not the "one drug fits all" solution in the treatment of delirium.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
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12 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundAlthough haloperidol is commonly used to treat or prevent delirium in intensive care unit (ICU) patients, the evidence remains inconclusive. This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the efficacy and safety of haloperidol for delirium treatment and prevention in ICU patients.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, the cochrane central register of controlled trials, EMBASE, ClinicalTrial.gov, and PubMed without language restrictions from database inception to June 27, 2024. We included double-blind randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on haloperidol versus placebo for treating and preventing delirium in adult ICU patients. In addition to frequentist analyses, Bayesian analysis was used to calculate the posterior probabilities of any benefit/harm and clinically important benefit/harm (CIB/CIH). The primary outcomes for delirium treatment were all-cause mortality and serious adverse events (SAEs). For delirium prevention, the primary outcomes included incident delirium, all-cause mortality, and SAEs. The secondary outcomes for efficacy were delirium-or coma-free days, ventilator-free days, length of stay in ICU, length of stay in hospital, and rescue benzodiazepine use. The secondary outcomes for safety were QTc prolongation and extrapyramidal syndrome.
resultsWe included seven RCTs on delirium treatment (n = 1767) and five on delirium prevention (n = 2509). The Bayesian analysis showed that, compared to placebo for delirium treatment, haloperidol had a 68% probability of achieving CIB (defined as risk difference [RD] < -0.02) in reducing all-cause mortality, a 2% probability of achieving CIH (RD > 0.02) in causing SAEs, and a 78% probability of achieving CIB (RD < -0.02) in reducing the need for rescue benzodiazepine use. The probabilities of haloperidol causing CIH (RD > 0.02) across all other safety outcomes were low (all < 50%). In frequentist analysis on delirium treatment, the pooled estimated RD for haloperidol compared to placebo was -0.05 (-0.09, -0.00; I
conclusionOur study supported the use of haloperidol for delirium treatment in adult ICU patients, but not for delirium prevention.
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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.