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Status unknownNCT03598127Updated Apr 8, 2021

Vitamin A Status in Critically Ill Children With Sepsis and Its Association With Illness Severity

An observational study in Sepsis, sponsored by West China Hospital. Status unknown at 1 site in China. Open to participants aged 0 Months to 192 Months. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-04-08.

Sponsored by West China Hospital · Observational

The sponsor has not verified this record recently (last verified Apr 2021), so the status shown — last known as Recruiting — may be out of date.
Study type
Observational
Model
Cohort
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
300
Ages
0 Months to 192 Months
Sex
All
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Study summary

The primary purpose of this study is to assess the status of vitamin A in critically ill children with sepsis and its association with the ill severity. The second purpose is to evaluate the performance of three tools in predicting mortality in our population which are used for measuring the illness severity in pediatric intensive care units.

Read the detailed description

Sepsis is a worldwide health problem, resulting in million of deaths each year. Sepsis caused by infectious diseases is also a common cause of death in children, and infectious diseases account for more than 50% of the deaths. The prevalence of sepsis and severe sepsis in children steadily rose in past decade. Although tremendous resources and efforts were consumed for the disease, the mechanism of sepsis is still unknown. However, sepsis 3.0 recommended that sepsis should be defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Study found that sepsis is characterized by a hyperinflammatory immune response in early phase and suppression of immune system in the later phase of sepsis. There are 10% of the deaths in the early phase due to overwhelming inflammation presenting with fever, shock, and multiorgan failure, while 30% of deaths caused by superinfection occur in the later phase.

Vitamin A, one of lipid soluble vitamins, plays an important role in immune system. Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of infection, and vitamin A deficiency is highly prevalent among children, especially in developing country. Vitamin A is essential for T cells differentiation, induced regulatory T cells (iTregs) and Th17 cells balance, and orchestrating immune responses, etc, which contribute to the immune response in patients with sepsis.Our previous studies revealed that vitamin A deficiency presented in children with enterovirus 71 (EV71) infection was associated with reduced immunity and more severe illness.So we hypothesize that vitamin A or vitamin A deficiency may play an essential role in sepsis. However, data on status of vitamin A or prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in children with sepsis is limited.We conduct a study to to assess the status of vitamin A in critically ill children with sepsis and its association with the illness severity.

There are three widely used score systems for measuring the illness severity in pediatric intensive care units: the pediatric risk of mortality (PRISM), the pediatric index of mortality (PIM) and the pediatric logistic organ dysfunction (PELOD) score. Though the three systems are validated in other populations, they are not commonly used in our population because lack of validation. We will evaluate the performance of the three tools in our population simultaneously in this study.

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Conditions studied

  • Sepsis

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Keywords

  • Vitamin A
  • status
  • sepsis
  • illness severity
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In context

Sepsis

1,899 studies on the registry are indexed under Sepsis; 462 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 300 is above the median of 160 across 931 observational studies indexed under Sepsis.

Browse Sepsis studies →

Lead sponsor

West China Hospital is the lead sponsor of 483 studies on the registry; 240 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
0 Months to 192 Months
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No
Sampling method
Non-probability sample

Study population

Patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit of West China Hospital of Sichuan University are screened and recruited.

Inclusion criteria

  • Age ≤16 years old
  • Diagnose of sepsis
  • Consent of both parents (or the person having parental authority in families)

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Discharging against medical advise
  • Age>16 years
  • Condition of underlying chronic disease (hepatic, renal, cardiac,neurological, pulmonary and gastrointestinal)
  • Patients with haematological malignancies and immunodeficiency

(As for evaluating the performance of the three score systems, all patients admitted to the PICU are included except adolescents >16 years of age and those patients who stayed in the PICU for \< 2h.)

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Study design

Observational model
Cohort
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
300 participants (estimated)
Patient registry
No
Biospecimen retention
Samples without dna

Groups and cohorts

  • sepsis group

    patients of sepsis group are diagnosed with sepsis according to International Pediatric Sepsis Consensus Conference:Definitions for sepsis and organ dysfunction in pediatrics.

  • control group

    A gender- and age- matched control group are recruited from among non-sepsis children from Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of West China Hospital.

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What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Comparison of vitamin A levels between sepsis group and control group,and assessment of VA status in sepsis patients with and without organ dysfunction

    Demographic data(age in months, gender, race, weight in kilograms) are collected. VA concentrations of the serum samples measured by mg/dl are analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography. Laboratory test results (serum creatinine in mmol/L, total bilirubin in mg/dL, PaCO2 in mmHg, and platelet count per mm\^3, etc) are collected to identify organ dysfunctions.

    Time frame: 1 year

Secondary outcomes

  1. the association between serum vitamin A concentrations and illness severity in children with sepsis

    Severity of illness are measured by Pediatric Risk of Mortality (PRISM) scores, and to investigate the correlation between PRISM scores and A concentrations.

    Time frame: 1 year

  2. Performance of PRISM in predicting mortality in pediatric intensive care units in Chinese population.

    The PRISM scores are accrued from most abnormal values of 14 physiology variables in the first 24h of admission. The minimum score is 0, and maximum is 76 which is almost invariably associated with death.

    Time frame: 1 year

  3. Performance of PIM2 in predicting mortality

    The index of PIM2 are calculate with 10 variables in the fist 1h of admission, and the index is transferred to probability of death.

    Time frame: 1 year

  4. Performance of PELOD-2 in predicting mortality

    The PELOD-2 score include 10 variables, each variable is ranging from 0 to 6 (some are less than 6). the maximum score is 33 and the minimum is 0. Larger the score means worsen status of a patient.

    Time frame: 1 year

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Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • West China Hospital of Sichuan University
    Chendu, Sichuan, China
    • Ji Yi, Doctor · Contact
    Recruiting
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References and documents

Publications

  • Zhang X, Sun K, Lu G, Feng L, Chen S, Ji Y. Comparison of PICU Cost and Severity-Adjusted Cost Between Patients With SIRS-Defined Sepsis and Those With Age-Adapted SOFA-Defined Sepsis. Front Pediatr. 2021 Feb 25;9:628918. doi: 10.3389/fped.2021.628918. eCollection 2021. PubMed 33718302 ↗
  • Zhang X, Yang K, Chen L, Liao X, Deng L, Chen S, Ji Y. Vitamin A deficiency in critically ill children with sepsis. Crit Care. 2019 Aug 1;23(1):267. doi: 10.1186/s13054-019-2548-9. PubMed 31370866 ↗
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Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Apr 8, 2021, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03598127
Lead sponsor
West China Hospital
Responsible party
Yi Ji (Doctor, West China Hospital) — Principal investigator
First posted
Jul 26, 2018
Start date
Jun 1, 2018
Primary completion
Dec 31, 2021 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 31, 2021 (estimated)
Last update
Apr 8, 2021

Study contacts

Chen Siyuan, Doctor
Contact
siy_chen@163.com
+86 02885423453

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is status unknown, as verified in Apr 2021. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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