$re = '/^((?:.*? )?(?:[Ll]ist|[Tt]able|[Ff]igure)\s+\d+(?:-\d+)?):\s+(.+)/';
$str = 'Text Table 6-2: Management of children study and actions';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php