Bayesian (re)-Analyses of Clinical Trial Data

Abstract

The Therapeutic Hypothermia after Pediatric Cardiac Arrest Out-of-Hospital (THAPCA-OH) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00878644) compared therapeutic hypothermia (33°C) with therapeutic normothermia (36.8°C) in 295 children suffering from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In the original results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2015, good neurobehavioral outcome and survival at 1 year were higher in the hypothermia group (20% vs. 12% and 38% vs. 29%, respectively); however, these differences did not meet the planned statistical threshold of P<0.05.¹.