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.

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.