Intensive Care Decontamination Protocols Raise Resistance Rates

With use of nonabsorbable antibiotics, pneumonia rates fell, but local resistance rates to several antibiotics rose.

“Selective decontamination” of the digestive tract (SDD) and the oropharynx (SOD) are techniques in which nonabsorbable antimicrobials are used to reduce bacterial colonization in patients who are at risk for infection. Several studies have confirmed that these interventions, when used routinely in intensive care unit (ICU) patients along with empirical parenteral antibiotics, lower the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia and prolong survival.

Still, American experts have been loath to endorse routine long-term use of SOD and SDD for fear of augmenting already high rates of resistance among nosocomial pathogens. Their worries now are validated by a follow-up study of the most recent trial (JW Infect Dis Jan 7 2009) in which Dutch re…

Reviewing Author

Abigail Zuger, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Abigail Zuger, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose