Evaluation of Methods for Extrapolating or Estimating the Size of Children in Pediatric Intensive Care

Size is a key data used daily by dietary teams; the paramedical team, nurse and diet are in charge of its measures.

In pediatric intensive care unit, a reliable size of the child must be obtained. It allows to realize:

* a nutritional assessment based on the World Health Organization (WHO) nutritional indices such as the Body Mass Index (BMI), growth chart monitoring and other nutritional indices. Nutritional status should be assessed and followed in pediatric intensive care as it is correlated with the prognosis of children. * an estimate of the energy needs by calculation of the rest energy expenditure. * a calculation of the body surface, useful for drug prescription, evaluation of burn scores, calculation of water and energy requirements and indexing of hemodynamic and ventilatory data.

An error in size measurement results in an error in BMI, calculation of energy requirements, and body surface area.

The WHO has defined "gold standard" criteria for measuring height in children, distinguishing the less than two years in whom the size is measured strictly lengthened, using a metric, and the more than two years in which height is measured standing with a stadiometer. In the context of pediatric resuscitation, the criteria for WHO size measurement are difficult to meet (coma, sedation, respiratory assistance, catheter, monitoring, proclive position, etc.) compromising standing or rectitude required for measurements.

The child is a growing organism. Health book sizes and declarative sizes are not always up-to-date.

It is therefore important to overcome these difficulties by using estimating or extrapolation methods that are applicable and safe in pediatric intensive care unit.

Currently, in pediatric intensive care units, the size evaluation, by direct measurement, estimation or extrapolation of segmental measurement, is not systematic because of the complexity of the measurement; To date, no method is used as a reference method in pediatric intensive care.

Among Children in pediatric intensive care unit (which does not usually meet the criteria of the WHO Gold Standard for Measurement of Height), to determine the optimal method for size measurement, by comparing different methods of estimating / extrapolating the size, gold standard WHO (achievable after the stay in intensive care).

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Key information

Conditions

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Age range

28 day–18 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

Primary location

Service de réanimation pédiatrique Hôpital Reine Fabiola Hôpital Publique, Brussels, Belgium

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

Children aged from 28 days to 18 years old.
Admitted in pediatric intensive care unit with a resuscitation situation (at least one system failure including respiratory and/or hemodynamic and/or neurological).
Children whose size was not measurable, at the time of the admission in pediatric intensive care unit according to WHO standards.
Patient affiliated to a social security system

Exclusion criteria

No expected evolution to a clinical state allowing the size measure according to the WHO standards according to age.
Stature growth greater (defined by WHO growth velocity scale according to age and sex) than 5% before the expected delay allowing the size measure using the WHO standards according to age
Children with skeleton malformation, dwarfism, abnormal limb.
Expected death before the end of the stay in pediatric intensive care unit
Parents or patients able to answer, refusing to participate to the study

Treatment and study plan

Size Measurement using a measuring tape, a caliper and a metric

Other

Each patient will have the following measure: measure of the span, the tibia, the ulna, the distance between the hill and the knee, the head, the trunk and the leg. The different measures will be done using a measuring tape and with a caliper. Before leaving the intensive care unit, each patients will be measured according to the WHO standard, that is to say strictly lengthened, using a metric for patient younger than 2 and stand up using a stadiometer for patient older than 2.

Primary outcomes

reliability of a series of extrapolation measurement techniques or size estimation in pediatric intensive care units.

Time frame: 150 days

The reliability of the estimation / size extrapolation methods will be defined by the average relative error relative to the WHO gold standard. A method will be considered reliable and without clinical impact if the absolute value of the average relative error is less than 3.5%

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Hospices Civils de Lyon

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Evaluation of Methods for Extrapolating or Estimating the Size of Children in Pediatric Intensive Care Compared With the Reference Method of the World Health Organization (WHO)

Acronym: EvTaReaP

Important dates

Study start: 2019
Primary completion: 2022
Study completion: 2022
First posted: Apr 12, 2019
Registry last updated: Nov 21, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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Completed