Study eligibility criteria
Individual studies are eligible to be included in this prospective
meta-trial if they meet the following requirements:
- Design: Prospective randomised study with an intervention group and a
control group
- Patients: Inclusion and exclusion criteria as described in Table 1
- Intervention: Inhaled nebulised unfractionated heparin (the dose,
frequency, delivery method and treatment duration are not specified or
prescribed by the meta-trial)
- Data collection: Able to collect and provide data required for the
meta-trial outcomes: intubation, death, ratio of oxygen saturation by
pulse oximetry to the fraction of inspired oxygen (SpO2/FiO2 ratio),
modified ordinal clinical scale (Table 2) [28]
- Ethics: Approval of the protocols and related documents obtained from
the relevant Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) or Institutional
Review Board (IRB) prior to the commencement of each individual study.