title: Is therapeutic hypothermia beneficial for pediatric patients with traumatic brain injury? A meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Hypothermia therapy shows its unique potential for reducing mortality in animal study and improving neurologic outcome in patients with traumatic brain injury. However, therapeutic hypothermia for pediatric traumatic brain injury remains a controversial issue. To determine the effectiveness and safety of hypothermia treatment for pediatric traumatic brain injury patients, we conducted this meta-analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed the data from MEDLINE, Pubmed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library by electronic searching. No limitation of language was selected for analysis. We extracted the mortality and adverse events from the published trials.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Six clinical trials and 366 pediatric patients met our inclusion criteria. Pediatric patients with traumatic brain injury treated with hypothermia had more unfavorable outcome than those in the normothermia group (RR 1.73, 95 % CI 1.06 to 2.84), and this increased risk is statistically significant. Patients with therapeutic hypothermia are slightly likely to be induced by cardiac arrhythmia, and the likelihood is also significant (RR 2.57, 95 % CI 1.01 to 6.54). Risk of pneumonia has no statistical difference between normothermia and hypothermia arms (RR 0.90, 95 % CI 0.73 to 1.12). Two of the included trials have reported their detail randomization assignment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hypothermia may slightly increase the risk of mortality in children with traumatic brain injury and the ratio of cardiac arrhythmia after this hypothermia therapy is slightly higher than that in normothermia groups. In the future, more randomized controlled trials and multicenter studies on the mechanism of therapeutic hypothermia are required.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Shanghai Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 1665 Kongjiang Road, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Chenkai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xiaoguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Baocheng
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qifeng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000628:therapy*; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007036:Hypothermia, Induced / Q000379:methods*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010372:Pediatrics; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic