Two patients can receive different amounts of a sedative and spend similar amounts of time in a target sedation range. A randomized intensive care trial by Bielka and colleagues tracked both outcomes when comparing dexmedetomidine plus as-needed diazepam with as-needed diazepam alone for alcohol withdrawal.
What the two endpoints captured
The trial assigned 36 patients to each arm. Median diazepam use over the first 24 hours was 20 mg in the combination arm and 40 mg in the comparison arm. The median percentage of time in the target range on the Richmond Agitation–Sedation Scale was 90% and 64.5%, respectively. The first measure describes diazepam consumption. The second describes observed sedation relative to a prespecified range.
Which patients contributed to the comparison?
The authors excluded one patient from the combination arm and four from the comparison arm after insufficient control led to additional sedative use. That decision matters when interpreting the reported outcomes. Time in range is a measure of how well the observed sedation matched the protocol target. It does not by itself establish how often the regimen prevented severe withdrawal complications.
Source
Bielka, Kuchyn and Glumcher, Annals of Intensive Care (2015), full text · DOI
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