British journal of anaesthesia
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Multicentre RCTs are widely used by critical care researchers to answer important clinical questions. However, few trials evaluating mortality outcomes report statistically significant results. We hypothesised that the low proportion of trials reporting statistically significant differences for mortality outcomes is plausibly explained by lower-than-expected effect sizes combined with a low proportion of participants who could realistically benefit from studied interventions. ⋯ When designing clinical trials, researchers most likely overestimate true population effect sizes for critical care interventions. Bayesian modelling demonstrates that that it is not necessarily the case that most studied interventions lack efficacy. In fact, it is plausible that many studied interventions have clinically important effects that are missed.
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Comparative Study
Dimensional compatibility of currently available equipment for cricothyroidotomy and adult airway anatomy: an in vitro analysis.
There are scant data on the dimensional compatibility of cricothyroidotomy equipment and related airway anatomy. We compared the dimensional design of devices for cricothyroidotomy with anatomical airway data for adult patients. ⋯ The outer diameter of many devices currently marketed for cricothyroidotomy are oversized for adult airway anatomy, particularly for females. For emergency front-of-neck access through the cricothyroid membrane, anatomical data suggest that cricothyroidotomy devices with outer tube diameters of <7 mm for male and <6 mm for female adult patients should be preferred.