Critical Care Research

The critical care team at CHOC Children’s Hospital is engaged in several large national multi-center clinical research studies across a wide spectrum of diseases. These studies are being supported by the PSF critical care attending physicians, CHOC nursing staff, as well as the research department at CHOC with two full time Clinical Research Coordinators dedicated to research within our large, active PICU. Many of these studies are being coordinated through our participation with a national organization of large, academic pediatric intensive care units across the country called PALISI, which refers to the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators organization.

We are an active participant in a National Institute of Health (NIH) sponsored multi-center study investigating implementation of a sedation protocol in children on mechanical ventilator support due to respiratory failure, RESTORE, studying whether the use of such a protocol will reduce the length of time these children spend on the ventilator, as well as improve the delivery of sedation medication to these children and improve their long-term well-being after being removed from ventilator support.

We are also participating in an NIH funded study called THAPCA, investigating whether total body hypothermia after resuscitation from pediatric cardiac arrest versus controlled normothermia results in improved patient survival and outcome.

In addition, there are investigations into Biomarkers of Acute Lung Injury (BALI) and the pharmacokinetics of sedation medications (PISA), a study on inflammatory and genetic biomarkers of septic shock, an investigation into the neuro-developmental consequences of critical pertussis infection, and two different studies on critical illness due to influenza, one looking at the immune response to critical influenza infection (PICFlu), and the other, sponsored by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) investigating the effect of the influenza vaccine on preventing critical illness in children (Influenza VE study).

For more information, please contact our Administrative Office at (714) 532-8620.