Hargarten 1990.

Study characteristics
Methods	Parallel‐design (2 arms) Country: USA Follow‐up: unclear
Participants	Randomly assigned: N = 1427 Lidocaine group: 49.33% (704/1427) Control group: 50.66% (723/1427) Age, years, mean (standard error or standard deviation unclear) (total group) Male: 62.1 (13.7) Female: 67.5 (14.2) Gender, male, % (n/N) Total group: 50.17 (716/1427) Inclusion criteria ≥ 18 years of age Chest pain of suspected cardiac origin Exclusion criteria Warning arrhythmias Second‐ or third‐degree heart block Bradycardia < 50 Hypotension < 90 mmHg Known allergy to lidocaine
Interventions	Lidocaine, intravenous (IV), initial bolus of 1 mg/kg; simultaneous 2 mg/min IV drip to maintain therapeutic blood levels. Ten minutes after first dose of lidocaine, second bolus of 0.5 mg/kg to prevent decrease to below therapeutic range Control group: not detailed Co‐intervention: not reported
Outcomes	Incidence of sudden death Incidence of warning arrhythmia
Notes	Sample size calculation a priori: not reported Sponsor: not reported Trial conduction dates: January 1984 to January 1988
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	"... was generated from a table of numbers from the Minitab software package of Perkin‐Elmer 3230 Supermini Computer" (page 82)
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement of ‘low risk’ or ‘high risk’
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement of ‘low risk’ or ‘high risk’
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement of ‘low risk’ or ‘high risk’
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	The report gave the impression that no dropouts or withdrawals had occurred, but this was not specifically stated
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	The study protocol is not available, but it is clear that published reports describe all expected outcomes, including those that were pre‐specified (convincing text of this nature may be uncommon)
Other bias	High risk	Bias in presentation data (Porta 2008)