Trial reportItalian journal of pediatrics2025
Standard treatment regimen with and without dexamethasone on outcome of children aged 3-7 years with empyema: a randomized double blind clinical trial.
Trial report in Italian journal of pediatrics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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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.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Systemic Corticosteroids in Pediatric Community-Acquired Pneumonia: Evidence, Clinical Outcomes, and Phenotype-Based Therapeutic Considerations.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCorticosteroids have an effective inhibitory effect on inflammatory factors and are used as adjunctive therapy for viral pneumonia. We conducted this study to compare the effects of a standard treatment regimen with and without dexamethasone on the outcomes of 3-7-year-old children with empyema.
methodsThis randomized controlled trial was conducted at a university hospital in Iran from June 2023 to November 2024. Children aged 3-7 years with empyema were enrolled. All patients received standard antibiotic treatment (Vancomycin and Meropenem) and a fibrinolytic agent (alteplase). The dexamethasone group received additional intrapleural dexamethasone injections. Randomization was performed using block randomization with a block size of 4. Both children and outcome assessors were blinded to dexamethasone administration. The primary outcome was length of stay (LOS), with secondary outcomes including duration of fever, chest tube placement, oxygen saturation, and CRP levels.
resultsOut of 47 patients (dexamethasone group = 23), 48.9% of the subjects (n = 23) were girls. The LOS in the dexamethasone group, with a median of 9.5 days and a range of 7-17 days, was significantly less than in the control group, with a median of 16 days and a range of 10-24 days. The duration of fever (median 5 vs. 11 days) and CRP level (median 12.5 vs. 21) in the dexamethasone group were significantly lower than in the control group. No significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of PCR for COVID-19 and influenza, pleural fluid smear culture, blood culture, oxygen saturation, and duration of chest tube placement.
conclusionsOur findings showed that the use of dexamethasone decreases the duration of hospitalization, duration of fever, and CRP levels, leading to faster recovery in children with empyema. Dexamethasone can be a safe and effective adjunctive therapy for empyema in children.
trial registrationIRCT20240705062336N1, Retrospectively Registered (20241116).
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