Tag Archives: Research Design

Is this article trustworthy?

Posted on 21 November 2025 by Keith Barrington

There are many ways that an article in the medical literature may not be worthy of trust, and whose results may be unreliable. I remember one of my own trials, LACUNA, which was a pilot RCT of lactoferrin supplementation to … Continue reading →

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Clinical examination and treatment of septic shock. Not neonatology.

Posted on 7 November 2025 by Keith Barrington

Andromeda-Shock-2 Investigators for the Andromeda Research Network SSoAR, et al. Personalized Hemodynamic Resuscitation Targeting Capillary Refill Time in Early Septic Shock: The ANDROMEDA-SHOCK-2 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2025. This is a very interesting trial evaluating the usefulness of clinical assessment … Continue reading →

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Return to the Regression to the Mean

Posted on 5 November 2025 by Keith Barrington

After my post on regression to the mean, and its importance in studies of apnoea therapy, I was thinking of other examples. Some which have been most evident to me are those which impact on areas of medicine that I … Continue reading →

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Do blood transfusions treat apnoea of prematurity?

Posted on 3 November 2025 by Keith Barrington

There has for a long time been a thought that anemic babies with many apnoeas could benefit from a blood transfusion which would decrease their apnoeic spells. This idea has never been directly tested by an RCT. That is, a … Continue reading →

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Unethical research practice, fraud and abuse of trust.

Posted on 2 June 2025 by Keith Barrington

One of the worst kinds of unethical research practice is to fail to publish results after a prospective study. Parents consent to research for altruistic motives, in the belief that their baby’s participation will help the care of other, future, … Continue reading →

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Is it a duck? Is it a mole? Platipus and Trial Design Innovations.

Posted on 19 February 2025 by Keith Barrington

When the platypus was first captured, killed, skinned and the pelt sent to a zoologist in London, George Shaw in 1799, he thought he was being scammed. He tried to find the stitches that had been used to cobble together … Continue reading →

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Making Clinical Research Oversight Fit-for-Purpose

Posted on 6 November 2024 by Keith Barrington

The title is a slightly edited copy of the title a discussion article in JAMA, that discusses some important issues in IRB oversight of clinical research. (Kass NE, et al. Making the Ethical Oversight of All Clinical Trials Fit for … Continue reading →

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Badly performed, badly presented, unethical published research; what to do?

Posted on 29 October 2024 by Keith Barrington

Since at least 2013 the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki has mandated registration of clinical trials prior to enrolment of the first subject. Since 2005 the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has required trial registration as a condition … Continue reading →

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Time to open the DOOR

Posted on 17 January 2024 by Keith Barrington

I have written many times about the problems with classical composite outcomes in neonatal research. “Death or BPD”, “death or NDI”, or sometimes “death or NEC or Sepsis or BPD or severe IVH” have been used as a way of … Continue reading →

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How to express negative results… or positive ones

Posted on 25 October 2023 by Keith Barrington

After any trial result, there is always a possibility that the true effect of an intervention is different to that shown in the sample who were studied. That is the whole rationale behind using statistics, a trial on a small … Continue reading →

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