Defining estimands in anaesthesia clinical trials: a scoping review and framework
Authors' conclusion
Use of estimands in anaesthesia trials is limited. Our tool supports structured identification and handling of intercurrent events in anaesthesia trials.
Study context
- Population
- RCTs with ≥100 participants, published January 2020–June 2024 in ten high-impact journals, in patients receiving anaesthesia before surgery
- Participants
- 139 included trials
- Outcome
- Estimand reporting
Methodological detailsframework development, expert review
- Framework development
- Expert review
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- Trials explicitly using the estimand framework
- 0
- Estimand inferable
- 27 (19%)
- Primary outcome defined
- all trials
- Target population not inferable
- 44 [32%]
- Treatment condition not inferable
- 21 [15%]
- Summary measure not inferable
- 22 [16%]
- Intercurrent event handling not inferable
- 84 [60%]
Further findings
Intercurrent events
- Not receiving the randomised intervention
- 64 [46%]
- Treatment discontinuation
- 38 [27%]
- Treatment switching
- 27 [19%]
- Surgery cancellation
- 37 [27%]
- Non-protocolised anaesthesia management
- 17 [12%]
Framework
- Structured, interactive web-based tool linking intercurrent events to intervention-outcome combinations, refined by expert review
Parts of this Brief are withheld: the automatic checks could not confirm them against the abstract.
Original publication
Defining estimands in anaesthesia clinical trials: a scoping review and framework. Br J Anaesth. Published 20 April 2026. doi:10.
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