Evidence linked at pharmacyjoe.com/episode554
What’s up pharmacy nation i am pharmacy joe thank you for being a listener of the elective rotation a critical care and hospital pharmacy podcast this is episode 554 in this episode i’ll discuss a yet to be published study of chlorhexidine for oral hygiene in icu patients i have all the evidence supporting today’s show linked up in the show notes at pharmacyjoe.com
Episode 554 in recent years the journal intensive care medicine has published a cohort study and editorial that call into question the safety and efficacy of oral mouth care with chlorhexidine and ventilated ico patients concerns include the risk of bias in the studies that have been used to justify oral care with chlorhexidine and the possibility that
Chlorhexidine may have direct negative effects on oral mucosa since the beginning of 2018 a large 4 000 plus patient randomized controlled trial has been underway looking at the de-adoption of oral chlorhexidine prophylaxis and implementation of an oral care bundle for ventilated critically ill patients it’s clear from the design of the study that the study
Authors recognize the importance of oral hygiene and ventilated ico patients as the controlled group includes a robust oral care bundle but excludes the use of chlorhexidine while the results of the study have not yet been published the two principal investigators have co-authored another editorial in intensive care medicine titled less daily oral hygiene is
More in the icu the authors repeat the previous concerns about study quality and adverse effect profile of chlorhexidine and make the following argument applying oral chlorhexidine is not the same as good oral care in fact it may be bad oral care we need to stop conflating chlorhexidine application with good oral care good old care excluding chlorhexidine is
To be recommended and recommended to relieve the severe symptoms suffered by critically ill patients and prevent dental disease the state of the evidence base at this time suggests that we should place a moratorium on the use of oral chlorhexidine until high quality randomized trials have reported the high quality randomized trial they references of course
Their own while there is no information on the timeline until results are published it’s already past the time study completion was scheduled to occur by my guess is the investigators would not write this article if they did not have some idea of the results of their trial so far i’ll continue to keep an eye out for the results and share them on the podcast
When they’re available to access my free download area with 20 different resources to help you in your practice go to pharmacyjoe.com free thank you so much for listening i’ll see you in the next episode of the elective rotation you
Transcribed from video
Episode 554: The Chlorhexidine Oral Hygiene Study that Could Change ICU Practice By Pharmacy Joe
