Objective:

To compare two endotracheal suctioning protocols according to morbidity, days of mechanical ventilation, length of stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), incidence of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) and mortality.

Methods:

A Pragmatic randomized controlled trial performed at University Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe, Medellin-Colombia. Forty-five children underwent an as-needed endotracheal suctioning protocol and forty five underwent a routine endotracheal suctioning protocol. Composite primary end point was the presence of hypoxemia, arrhythmias, accidental extubation and heart arrest. A logistic function trough generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to calculate the Relative Risk for the main outcome.

Results:

Characteristics of patients were similar between groups. The composite primary end point was found in 22 (47%) of intervention group and 25 (55%) children of control group (RR= 0.84; 95% CI: 0.56-1.25), as well in 35 (5.8%) of 606 endotracheal suctioning performed to intervention group and 48 (7.4%) of 649 performed to control group (OR= 0.80; 95% CI: 0.5-1.3).

Conclusions:

There were no differences between an as-needed and a routine endotracheal suctioning protocol.

Trial registration:

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01069185

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