Citation

Kilpatrick R, Greenberg RG. Pediatrics 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

10.1542/peds.2023-064938

PMID

38389480

Abstract

Clinical trials are demanding, resource intensive, and essential to the health and well-being of children. In this issue of Pediatrics, Li and colleagues1 outline the magnitude of an often-overlooked problem within neonatal and perinatal clinical trials. Their results demonstrate that missing primary outcome data are often ignored or mishandled, which decreases statistical power, increases bias, and may jeopardize the validity of clinical trial results. The authors provide practical approaches to avoid missing outcome data through clinical trial design strategies and review sensitivity analyses and imputation methods to mitigate the risk of bias. The problem of missing data is not unique to the neonatal and perinatal population,2 and is common in trials focused on pediatric chronic medical conditions, including HIV,3 obesity,4,5 and asthma.6 Thus, the concepts reviewed by Li and colleagues apply broadly.

Although clinical trials in pediatric populations are challenging, trials in...

Language: en