Clinical practice guidelines: management of non-post-operative supra-ventricular tachycardia in neonates and children less than 18 years old hospitalized in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
In brief
Pediatric ICU guidelines offer 21 recommendations for childhood SVT, mostly expert opinion
French-speaking experts developed 21 recommendations for managing non-postoperative supraventricular tachycardia in neonates and children hospitalized in pediatric intensive care. Only five recommendations could be graded using formal evidence methods; the other 16 reflect expert opinion, despite strong agreement among the panel. How well these recommendations improve patient outcomes remains unknown.
- Journal
- Annals of intensive care (Q1)
- Published
- 16 September 2026
- Study design
- Practice guideline / consensus
- Evidence level
- Level 1, High (CEBM 1c)
- Authors
- Sophie Breinig, Romain Amadieu, Agathe Béranger, Yves Dulac, Isabelle Goyer, Marion Grimaud, et al.
- PMID
- 42861350
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.aicoj.2026.100160
Why clinicians should know about it
- Picked for Pediatrics and Child Health (paper of the day, 14 October 2026): Guidelines for non‑post‑operative SVT in children
Abstract
PURPOSE: We present guidelines in the form of pragmatic recommendations for management of neonates and children less than 18 years old presenting with non-post-operative supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and hospitalized in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). METHODS: Thirteen French-speaking experts, all of them members of the Groupe Francophone de Réanimation et Urgence Pédiatriques (French-speaking group of paediatric intensive and emergency care; GFRUP), collaborated from 2024 to 2025 through teleconferences and face-to-face meetings. The guidelines cover four areas: (1) epidemiology and criteria for admission to a PICU, (2) paraclinical assessment, (3) non-specific rhythm management, and (4) specific rhythm management. The questions were formulated in the Patient-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome (PICO) format. An extensive Anglophone and Francophone literature search indexed in the MEDLINE database via PubMed, Cochrane and Embase was performed using pre-established keywords. The texts were analyzed and classified according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology. When this method was not applicable, an expert opinion was given. Each of the recommendations was voted on by all the experts according to the Delphi methodology. RESULTS: The group proposes 21 recommendations. The GRADE methodology could be applied for five of them, and an expert opinion was given for the remaining 16. All of the recommendations received strong approval. CONCLUSION: These guidelines cover different aspects in the management of non-post-operative SVT in children hospitalized in PICUs including non-specific and specific rhythm management.
Abstract as published, via PubMed.
For healthcare professionals. The summary is generated by AI from the published abstract, and the evidence level is assigned automatically from the study design on the Oxford CEBM hierarchy. Neither is medical advice. Read the full paper before changing practice.