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Your research news item on the study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in children mis-represents the results of this study. The study did not show that "cooling doesn't improve outcomes". Rather the published results were improved outcomes (lower mortality, higher rates of survival free of disability) in the cooled children.
The study was underpowered, such that despite the rather low "number needed to treat" to increase disability free survival, the p-values for the key outcomes were above 0.05.
When considered alongside the evidence for the benefit of cooling in similar contexts, I suggest a more reasonable headline interpretation of the study data is that "emergency cooling shows great promise in children with cardiac arrest". Less catchy (but still accurate) would be "Apparent benefits of cooling in children with cardiac arrest could possibly be due to chance alone".
Re: Emergency cooling doesn’t improve outcomes in children with cardiac arrest, study shows
Dear Editors,
Your research news item on the study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in children mis-represents the results of this study. The study did not show that "cooling doesn't improve outcomes". Rather the published results were improved outcomes (lower mortality, higher rates of survival free of disability) in the cooled children.
The study was underpowered, such that despite the rather low "number needed to treat" to increase disability free survival, the p-values for the key outcomes were above 0.05.
When considered alongside the evidence for the benefit of cooling in similar contexts, I suggest a more reasonable headline interpretation of the study data is that "emergency cooling shows great promise in children with cardiac arrest". Less catchy (but still accurate) would be "Apparent benefits of cooling in children with cardiac arrest could possibly be due to chance alone".
Competing interests: No competing interests