Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Illness and Trauma in Pediatrics

Dear Colleagues,

Treatments, drugs, devices, and therapeutics are used extensively off-label in pediatrics owing to the absence of FDA clearance for a pediatric indication. The latest FDA guidelines support alternative evidence generation, yet the challenges to pediatric clinical investigators to use simulated trial designs, leverage RWE, or perform meta-analyses in an effort to achieve more evidence-based guidelines or a pediatric indication remain. Research training on alternative trials or meta-analysis during fellowship is scarce, so young investigators enter the profession without much experience in these designs and methods. Alternative trial designs may be viewed as a lower level of evidence by journals, so there is little incentive for pediatric investigators to attempt these designs.

This Special Issue provides an opportunity for investigators performing research supporting guideline development or a pediatric indication in acute pediatric illnesses, surgery, and trauma to disseminate their work. Our hope as editors for this Special Issue is to promote the efforts of those investigators who are working towards evidence-based guidelines or a pediatric indication by using alternative evidence generation strategies. Our goal is to demonstrate that strong evidence can be generated to support guidelines for pediatrics without a cost-prohibitive clinical trial. By promoting more alternative evidence generation, we can promote more of this work in pediatrics; thus, we can promote more pediatric evidence-based guidelines and indications. By disseminating this work, we hope that it can be used as a model for more researchers to follow. We invite any clinical investigator tackling a pediatric acute illness or injury or evaluating a treatment or device in the management of an acute illness or injury where they are attempting to generate evidence to support a pediatric indication or best practice to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. We would also invite discussion papers on challenges in utilizing trial designs in pediatric research. We especially encourage young investigators and student learners to submit manuscripts on challenges they have encountered, efforts, and solutions.

Prof. Dr. Lois W. Sayrs
Prof. Dr. Justin H. Lee
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• pediatrics
• pediatric acute illness
• pediatric injury
• pediatric surgery
• trial design
• alternative trials
• devices
• FDA clearance
• RWE
• evidence generation