CRIT CLOUD

  • Summaries & Reviews
    • Airway
    • Cardiovascular
    • Controversies
    • Endocrinology
    • Fluids
    • Guidelines
    • Infections
    • Neurology
    • Nutrition
    • Pharmacology
    • Procedures
    • Radiology
    • Renal
    • Resuscitiation
    • Respiratory
    • Sedation
    • Sepsis
    • Transfusion
  • World of Foam
  • FOAM.education
  • Education
    • ACLS Training ICU Lindenhofspital
    • Download Presentations
    • Download CME Galway Clinic 🔒
    • Download CME Lindenhof Hospital 🔒
    • Echo 🔒
    • Presentations🔒
    • Multimedia
  • About Us
    • Contact
  • Summaries & Reviews
    • Airway
    • Cardiovascular
    • Controversies
    • Endocrinology
    • Fluids
    • Guidelines
    • Infections
    • Neurology
    • Nutrition
    • Pharmacology
    • Procedures
    • Radiology
    • Renal
    • Resuscitiation
    • Respiratory
    • Sedation
    • Sepsis
    • Transfusion
  • World of Foam
  • FOAM.education
  • Education
    • ACLS Training ICU Lindenhofspital
    • Download Presentations
    • Download CME Galway Clinic 🔒
    • Download CME Lindenhof Hospital 🔒
    • Echo 🔒
    • Presentations🔒
    • Multimedia
  • About Us
    • Contact

Reviews and Summaries

Subglottic Suctioning Prevents Harm in the Long-Term Intubated Patient - So Do it!

5/3/2015

 
Picture
Microbiologically confirmed ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) or ventilator-associated conditions (VAC, e.g. worsening oxygenation) in intubated patients remains a major concern in ICU's. VAP is defined as a hospital-acquired pneumonia which develops within 48-72 hours after endotracheal intubation.
To prevent this complication ICU's uniformly have adapted the VAP-bundle, a bunch of measures aiming to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia. Unfortunately the evidence of the VAP-bundle is not as robust as one might think it is. Here's the  evidence of some elements of the VAP bundle:

- Elevation of the head to bed 45° (low evidence)
- Daily sedation interruptions (the impact on reducing VAP has not been shown so far)
- Daily oral chlorhexidine rinses (low evidence)


... it's most likely the combination of measures that is of benefit to the patient... hopefully! But hold on, there is another intervention that finally brings quite some evidence with it!

Active suctioning of the subglottic area, where nasal-oral secretions gather and create a rich culture medium for all sorts of micro-organisms, also aims to reduce the incidence of VAP. In contrast to the classical VAP-bundle the evidence here is strongly in favour for these devices! 

In 2005 four registrars in cardiothoracic surgery looked into this topic and summarised their efforts online on Best Evidence Topics, best bets.org. In this blog they review 13 relevant articles on the use of subglottic suctioning and conclude: subglottic suction significantly reduces the incidence of VAP in high risk patients - which means a NNT of 8 if ventilated for more than 3 days. They also mention that this measure is cost effective, despite the more expensive tubes.

In the same year Dezfulian et al. presented a systematic meta-analysis of randomized trials in the American Journal of Medicine. They ended up with 5 studies including 869 patients. They also came to the conclusion that subglottic secretion drainage is effective in preventing VAP in patients expected to be ventilated for more than 72 hours.

In 2011 Hallais et al. looked into the issue of cost-effectiveness with a cost-benefit analysis. Even when assuming the most pessimistic scenario of VAP incidence and costs the replacement of conventional ventilation with continuous subglottic suctioning would still be cost-effective.

In 2011 Muscedere et al. published an 'official' review article in Critical Care Medicine and also ended up with 13 randomised clinical trial, most of them the same 'BestBETs' had already identified 6 years before. It is therefore not surprising to see that they also found a highly significant reduction in VAP. They were also able to demonstrate a reduction in ICU length of stay and duration of mechanical ventilation, although the strength of this association was weakened by heterogeneity of study results.


We finally would like to mention the latest randomised controlled trial on this topic which was published in Critical Care Medicine this January 2015. Damas et al. randomly assigned 352 patients to either receive subglottic suctioning or not. Again sublottic suctioning significantly reduced VAP prevalence and therefore also antibiotic use.

At least we have identified one area in critical care where an impressive pile of evidence supporting the use of subglottic suctioning in long-term intubated patients is present... and even better: cost-effective analyses also come out in great favour for this measure!

Take-home message: Subglottic suctioning does prevent VAP in patients likely to be ventilated more than (48-) 72 hours and should be used in these situations.


Review BestBETs 2005

Dezfulian C et al. Am J Med. 2005 Jan;118(1):11-8

Hallais C. et al. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2011 Feb;32(2):131-5


Muscedere J et al. Crit Care Med. 2011 Vol. 39, No. 8

Damas P et al. Crit Care Med. 2015 Jan;43(1):22-30


Comments are closed.

    Search


    ​Translate

    Select your language above. Beware: Google Translate is often imprecise and might result in incorrect phrases!

    Categories

    All
    Airway
    Cardiovascular
    Controversies
    Endocrinology
    Fluids
    For A Smile ; )
    Guidelines
    Infections
    Meducation
    Neurology
    Nutrition
    Pharmacology
    Procedures
    Radiology
    Renal
    Respiratory
    Resuscitation
    SARS CoV 2
    SARS-CoV-2
    Sedation
    Sepsis
    Transfusion

    Archives

    January 2021
    September 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Author

    Timothy Aebi

    RSS Feed

ABOUT US

The Crit ☁​ supports free access medical education. The content of this website can be used and reproduced by stating a reference to our site.
Read our statements here

SEARCH US

CONTACT US

If you have any interesting article or news to be posted on this website, please contact us here
​

FOLLOW US

TRUST US

TWEET US

This website is certified by Health On the Net Foundation. Click to verify. This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information:
verify here.

Picture
Follow @BIJCorg

DISCOVER THE WORLD OF #FOAMed HERE
Picture