A systematic review and meta-analysis of enrollment into ARDS and sepsis trials published between 2009 and 2019 in major journals

Table 1 Characteristics of articles

Characteristic	Number	Percent
Included studies	94
Target patient population
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)/acute lung injury (ALI)	23	24.5
Sepsis (includes sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock)	67	71.3
Both sepsis and ARDS	4	4.3
Publication period
2009–2013	43	45.7
2014–2019	51	54.3
Journal
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine	9	9.6
Chest	1	1.1
Critical Care	14	14.9
Critical Care Medicine	16	17.0
Intensive Care Medicine	11	11.7
Journal of the American Medical Association	18	19.1
Journal of the American Medical Association – Internal Medicine	1	1.1
Lancet	2	2.1
Lancet—Respiratory Medicine	2	2.1
New England Journal of Medicine	20	21.3
Continent of first author
Asia	8	8.5
Australia	4	4.3
Europe	46	48.9
North America	21	22.3
South America	15	16.0
Funding sources^a
Academic institution	19	20.2
Association or foundation	14	14.9
Government	47	50.0
Industry	21	22.3
Unreported	9	9.6
Intervention^b
Clinical protocol	32	34.0
Device	12	12.8
Diagnostic test	1	1.1
Drug	50	53.2
Consent type
Prospective	76	80.9
Retrospective	18	19.1
Enrollment achieved^c (N = 90)
\(\ge\) 95% of target sample size enrolled	54	60
< 95% of target sample size enrolled	36	40
Futility^a	15	41.6
Safety^a	10	27.8
Efficacy^a	4	11.1
Slow enrollment^a	8	22.2
Other/not reported^a	4	11.1

^aNot mutually exclusive, ^bOne article reported both a pharmacotherapeutic and clinical protocol intervention, ^cFour trials did not report a sample size target

ISSN: 1364-8535