New paper looks at oxygenation targets trial in critically ill children

A new paper from Xtreme Everest's Dr Mark Peters, which is co-authored by Prof Mike Grocott was recently published at the end of 2017. The paper, called Protocol for a randomised pilot multiple centre trial of conservative versus liberal oxygenation targets in critically ill children (Oxy-PICU). looks at the proposal for the first randomised trial to compare conservative and liberal systemic oxygenation targets in mechanically ventilated children.

Current practice for doing this varies widely from doctor, age, diagnosis and even local and national guidelines and therefore optimal targets are unknown. The pilot study will be conducted with patients who are less then 16 years old and more then 38 weeks corrected gestational age, who are emergency admissions accepted to a PICU and who required mechanical ventilation. Factors including death which was perceived as imminent, brain injuries and known or suspected uncorrected congenital cardiac disease will make patients not eligible for the study.

Samples of blood and urine will be collected to assess for possible mechanisms of oxidative injury. Blood from indwelling invasive lines will be sampled within 24 hours of randomisation and again up to 72 hours postrandomisation (or immediately prior to removal of suitable invasive sampling lines in patients with an anticipated shorter length of stay).

As mentioned, the paper focuses on the pilot study but it is hoped that if the study proves feasible this will help to inform a larger scale study.

To read the paper in full, please visit the BMJ website where you can read or download a copy to read offline.