Tag Archives: Randomized Controlled Trials

Septic Shock; 3 negative trials

Posted on 24 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

Three trials back to back in the PNEJM (that’s the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine for any new readers) in adults with septic shock are disappointing: Early Goal Directed Therapy has become a dogma in recent years; it even … Continue reading →

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Sticking needles into babies doesn’t reduce colic. Who’d have thought…

Posted on 17 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

More nonsense, this time acupuncture for babies! Ninety babies were randomized in a multicenter trial of sticking needles into non-existent meridians to channel imaginary Qi energy. Unfortunately the condition they were investigating, infantile colic, causes a lot of real distress … Continue reading →

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Waving your hands around is not analgesic! Who’d have thought…

Posted on 17 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

Really, who’d have thought it was worth testing. I have a lot of respect for several of the authors of this trial, but I can’t for the life of me understand why they did this study. Celeste Johnston, Marsha Campbell-Yeo, … Continue reading →

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Public citizen are becoming a public danger

Posted on 13 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

Public citizen are at it again, they have written another letter to the director of the DHHSS to try and follow up on their previous nonsense. I didn’t write about this when I first heard about it, as 1. it … Continue reading →

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HIP Protocol published

Posted on 13 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

The Hypotension in Preterms trial is about to get underway, with all the final hurdles just about cleared. Just at the right time our protocol has been published in ‘Neonatology’. Dempsey EM, Barrington KJ, Marlow N, O’Donnell CP, Miletin J, … Continue reading →

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Leave my renal nerves alone, please.

Posted on 10 March 2014 by Keith Barrington

Not having looked after an adult for many years (although I did do a year of postgraduate training in adult internal medicine before switching to paediatrics; I thought I should practice on the old ones before subjecting children to my … Continue reading →

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More about mother’s voices

Posted on 26 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

When I first read this article I thought that the authors had rigged up a system to play music actually in the babies mouth, but I think I was wrong about that. Chorna OD, Slaughter JC, Wang L, Stark AR, … Continue reading →

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Does being ventilated hurt? It depends who you ask

Posted on 21 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Ruth Guinsburg is a neonatologist in Sao Paulo who has been super-productive, especially in the area of pain control in the newborn. Her latest is an interesting comparison of how caregivers and parents rate pain in infants on ventilators. Elias … Continue reading →

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Yet more probiotic stuff

Posted on 14 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Here is the other study of saccharomyces that I mentioned previously on this blog (Demirel G, Erdeve O, Celik IH, Dilmen U: Saccharomyces boulardii for prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants: A randomized, controlled study. Acta Paediatrica 2013) recently … Continue reading →

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If massage is so good, how come the research is so bad?

Posted on 5 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

I think its likely that massage therapy for the preterm infant has some benefits, unfortunately much of the research is under-powered, badly designed, inappropriately analyzed and overinterpreted. A case in point is a new study in Early Human Development, which … Continue reading →

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