{"doi":"10.1542/peds.2012-0055j","title":"Empirical Evaluation of Age Groups and Age-Subgroup Analyses in Pediatric Randomized Trials and Pediatric Meta-analyses","abstract":"<h4>Background</h4>An important step toward improvement of the conduct of pediatric clinical research is the standardization of the ages of children to be included in pediatric trials and the optimal age-subgroups to be analyzed.<h4>Methods</h4>We set out to evaluate empirically the age ranges of children, and age-subgroup analyses thereof, reported in recent pediatric randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses. First, we screened 24 RCTs published in Pediatrics during the first 6 months of 2011; second, we screened 188 pediatric RCTs published in 2007 in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials; third, we screened 48 pediatric meta-analyses published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2011. We extracted information on age ranges and age-subgroups considered and age-subgroup differences reported.<h4>Results</h4>The age range of children in RCTs published in Pediatrics varied from 0.1 to 17.5 years (median age: 5; interquartile range: 1.8-10.2) and only 25% of those presented age-subgroup analyses. Large variability was also detected for age ranges in 188 RCTs from the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and only 28 of those analyzed age-subgroups. Moreover, only 11 of 48 meta-analyses had age-subgroup analyses, and in 6 of those, only different studies were included. Furthermore, most of these observed differences were not beyond chance.<h4>Conclusions</h4>We observed large variability in the age ranges and age-subgroups of children included in recent pediatric trials and meta-analyses. Despite the limited available data, some age-subgroup differences were noted. The rationale for the selection of particular age-subgroups deserves further study.","journal":"Pediatrics","year":2012,"id":1649,"datarank":0.5050943744979712,"base_score":3.367295829986474,"endowment":3.367295829986474,"self_citation_contribution":0.5050943744979712,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5050943744979712,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":28,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.1375,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2012-06-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":18803,"name":"Iva Seto","orcid":"0000-0003-3595-7104","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18804,"name":"Michele P. Hamm","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18805,"name":"Denise Thomson","orcid":"0000-0002-4972-5331","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18806,"name":"Lisa Hartling","orcid":"0000-0001-8341-3991","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18807,"name":"Sarah Curtis","orcid":"0000-0003-4996-7784","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18808,"name":"Evelyn Constantin","orcid":"0000-0001-6023-3058","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18809,"name":"Gitanjali Batmanabane","orcid":"0000-0001-7134-8395","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18810,"name":"Terry Klassen","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18811,"name":"Katrina Williams","orcid":"0000-0002-1686-4458","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":918,"name":"Despina G. Contopoulos‐Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0002-1918-8918","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18812,"name":"Terry P. Klassen","orcid":"0000-0002-5309-7091","position":12,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":294,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}