Impact of Multimodal Analgesia in Critically Ill Burn Patients

Effect of a multimodal analgesia strategy on remifentanil daily consumption in mechanically ventilated adult ICU patients: study protocol for a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group clinical trial

INTRODUCTION

Intensive care unit (ICU) patients under mechanical ventilation experience mild-to-severe pain. International guidelines emphasise the importance and benefits of multimodal analgesia to minimise opioid consumption and its side effects. However, no recommendation about drugs or protocol has been formulated. The aim of the Opioid-Free Analgesia in Intensive Care Unit study is to assess the feasibility of a standardised multimodal analgesia strategy and its benefits following the impact of remifentanil sparing in ICU patients.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

50 mechanically ventilated adult patients will be recruited in a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, feasibility trial. In the interventional group, patients will receive a standardised multimodal analgesia, initially receiving nefopam and tramadol, implementing with ketamine if patients remain painful, and then implementing with remifentanil with escalating doses in case of insufficient analgesia. In the control group, patients will receive remifentanil, implementing doses gradually to achieve analgesia. The primary outcome will be the daily consumption of remifentanil between the 24th and 48th hour after inclusion. Secondary outcomes will include drug tolerance, mechanical ventilation duration, ICU and hospital length of stay, 28-day and 90-day mortalities and 90-day opioid consumption.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study protocol was accepted by the Nîmes University Hospital's research committee, the French ethics committee (Institutional Review Board OUEST IV) and the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM).

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05825560.

An Appraisal of Pharmacotherapy-Pertinent Literature Published in 2021 and 2022 for Clinicians Caring for Patients With Thermal or Inhalation Injury

Studies focusing on pharmacotherapy interventions to aid patients after thermal injury are a minor focus in burn injury-centered studies and published across a wide array of journals, which challenges those with limited resources to keep their knowledge current. This review is a renewal of previous years' work to facilitate extraction and review of the most recent pharmacotherapy-centric studies in patients with thermal and inhalation injury. Twenty-three geographically dispersed, board-certified pharmacists participated in the review. A Medical Subject Heading-based, filtered search returned 2336 manuscripts over the previous 2-year period. After manual review, 98 (4%) manuscripts were determined to have a potential impact on current pharmacotherapy practice. The top 10 scored manuscripts are discussed. Only 17% of those reviewed were assessed to likely have little effect on current practice. The overall impact of the current cohort was higher than previous editions of this review, which is encouraging. There remains a need for investment in well-designed, high-impact, pharmacotherapy-pertinent research for patients sustaining thermal or inhalation injuries.