Randomized intubation with polyurethane or conical cuffs to prevent pneumonia in ventilated patients

Rationale: The occurrence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is linked to the aspiration of contaminated pharyngeal secretions around the endotracheal tube. Tubes with cuffs made of polyurethane rather than polyvinyl chloride or with a conical rather than a cylindrical shape increase tracheal sealing. Objectives: To test whether using polyurethane and/or conical cuffs reduces tracheal colonization and VAP in patients with acute respiratory failure. Methods: We conducted a multicenter, prospective, open-label, randomized study in four parallel groups in four intensive care units between 2010 and 2012.Acohort of 621 patients with expected ventilation longer than 2 days was included at intubation with a cuff composed of cylindrical polyvinyl chloride (n = 148), cylindrical polyurethane (n = 143), conical polyvinyl chloride (n = 150), or conical polyurethane (n = 162).We used Kaplan-Meier estimates andlog-ranktests tocompare times toevents. Measurements and Main Results: After excluding 17 patients who secondarily refused participation or had met an exclusion criterion, 604 were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. Cumulative tracheal colonization greater than 103 cfu/ml at Day 2 was as follows (median [interquartile range]): cylindrical polyvinyl chloride, 0.66 (0.58-0.74); cylindrical polyurethane, 0.61 (0.53-0.70); conical polyvinyl chloride, 0.67 (0.60-0.76); and conical polyurethane, 0.62 (0.55-0.70) (P = 0.55).VAP developed in 77 patients (14.4%), and postextubational stridor developed in 28 patients (6.4%) (P = 0.20 and 0.28 between groups, respectively). Conclusions: Among patients requiring mechanical ventilation, polyurethane and/or conically shaped cuffs were not superior to conventional cuffs in preventing tracheal colonization and VAP. Clinical trial registered with clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01114022).