Chlorhexidine within a standardized oral-care bundle for the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia: a pragmatic cluster-randomized crossover trial in six medical intensive care units

Chlorhexidine (CHX) has been a long-standing component of oral-care bundles for preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), but recent evidence has questioned its benefit in non-cardiac-surgery ICU. We evaluated whether adding 0.12% CHX to standardized oral-care bundle provides incremental benefit in a mixed medical ICU.

We conducted a prospective, pragmatic cluster-randomized crossover (AB/BA) trial in six adult medical ICUs of a single tertiary-care academic hospital in Bhubaneswar, India. ICUs were randomized as three ICUs of two Period of 9 months with the multicomponent oral-care bundle without chlorhexidine and three with the same bundle plus 0.12% chlorhexidine with a 1-month wash-in and re-training interval. Consecutive adults ventilated for ≥ 48 h were included. The primary outcome was VAP incidence density (Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score (CPIS) > 6) as per 1,000 ventilator-days. Secondary outcomes were 28-day all-cause mortality, duration of mechanical ventilation, ICU length of stay, 28- day ventilator-free days, Beck Oral Assessment Scale (BOAS) and Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) scores. The primary model was a population-averaged Poisson generalized estimating equation (GEE) and adjustment for treatment, period, sequence, age, sex, APACHE II, and SOFA.