Skip to content
left end
left end
right end

SCARF trial - pragmatic, randomised controlled trial in infants & children with severely impaired immunity and acute respiratory failure

The SCARF trial is led from Great Ormond Street Hospital and opened to recruitment at UH Bristol in May 2014. The trial is being led locally by Dr Peter Davis in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

The SCARF trial is a pragmatic, randomised controlled trial in infants & children with severely impaired immunity and acute respiratory failure. The objective of the study is to find out whether early admission to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure support) results in more children recovering from severe breathing difficulties when compared to usual treatment.

SCARF is a complex trial involving collaboration between two clinical teams and the newly integrated Children's Research Team at UH Bristol, and we have a recruitment target of 4 patients over 2 years. Despite, this Dr Peters and the team were able to consent and randomise the first UH Bristol into the SCARF trial in August 2014, which is a fantastic achievement.

This is a complex trial that requires very close multi-disciplinary and cross team working in order to be successful.  Without the consent of the parents and the support of all the individual staff and wider teams involved recruitment of the child would not have been a success.  Most importantly the child and parents had a very positive experience and felt that the CPAP had improved her breathing significantly within the first day. 

The second UH Bristol patient has since been recruited to SCARF, in January 2015. The team are continuing to screen for other potential recruits and look forward to being able to share the results of this exciting study when Great Ormond Street Hospital have analysed the data and published the study. The study is currently due to run until 2016.

Further information about the SCARF trial can be found here: https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Research/Studies/Scarf/About