[Comprehensive effect of subglottic secretion drainage on patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: a...

To systematically evaluate the comprehensive effect of subglottic secretion drainage (SSD) on patients with mechanical ventilation (MV) in intensive care unit (ICU).

The randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) comparing SSD (intervention group) versus non-SSD (control group) in adult patients with MV in ICU was collected through the databases such as the PubMed database of the National Library of Medicine, CNKI, Wanfang database and the Chinese journal of science and technology database (VIP). The subjects were ICU patients with MV, and the retrieval time ranged from January 2006 to December 2016. Two reviewers independently screened the studies according to the inclusive and exclusive criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the quality. Then RevMan 5.3 software was used for Meta-analysis. Sensitivity analysis was performed using Stata 11.0 software. Funnel plot was used to analyze publication bias.

In the 1 004 documents obtained from preliminary screening, a total of 13 studies involving 2 052 patients were enrolled after excluding duplicated documents and literature did not meet the inclusion criteria, with 1 021 patients in intervention group, and 1 031 in control group. Meta-analysis showed that compared with control group, the application of SSD in patients with MV could contribute to the reduction of the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia [VAP; risk ratio (RR) = 0.54, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) = 0.46-0.64, P < 0.000 01], the duration of MV [mean difference (MD) = -3.29, 95%CI = -4.53 to -2.05, P < 0.000 01] and length of hospital stay (MD = -4.27, 95%CI = -7.36 to -1.18, P = 0.007) were shortened, while there was no significant difference in ICU or hospital mortality rate between the intervention group and control group (RR = 0.89, 95%CI = 0.73-1.09, P = 0.25). The sensitivity analysis for studies enrolled in Meta-analysis of MV duration showed that individual research results were stable through step remove of the included literatures and combined calculation of the remaining literature value, suggesting that individual research results were stable, and would not have a significant impact on the overall results. The results of the funnel analysis showed that there was a symmetry in the inclusion studies, and no significant publication bias was found.

SSD did have effect in reducing the incidence of VAP, shortening the duration of MV and length of hospital stay, while there was no significant effect on reducing mortality rate. Effective use of SSD is an important measure to prevent VAP. It is necessary to objectively evaluate the clinical effect of SSD.