ArticleCritical care (London, England)2021
Selective digestive decontamination, a seemingly effective regimen with individual benefit or a flawed concept with population harm?
Article in Critical care (London, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of antibiotic prophylaxis in polytrauma patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of trauma and emergency surgery : official publication of the European Trauma Society · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Trial
- A cost-effectiveness analysis of selective decontamination of the digestive tract in mechanically ventilated patients in the intensive care unit.Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine · 2026Article
- Are arms-based methods required to test the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) among Cochrane reviews of contagious infection prevention interventions?Global epidemiology · 2026Article
- Estimating the herd effects of antimicrobial prevention interventions on ventilator-associated pneumonia within ICU populations: a cluster randomized trial emulation using data from Cochrane reviews.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Structural Equation Modelling as a Proof-of-Concept Tool for Mediation Mechanisms Between Topical Antibiotic Prophylaxis and Six Types of Blood Stream Infection Among ICU Patients.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Visualizing and diagnosing spillover within randomized concurrent controlled trials through the application of diagnostic test assessment methods.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Antibiotics in Chronic Liver Disease and Their Effects on Gut Microbiota.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Trends in ICU mortality and underlying risk over three decades among mechanically ventilated patients. A group level analysis of cohorts from infection prevention studies.Annals of intensive care · 2023Review
- Establishing the safety of selective digestive decontamination within the ICU population: a bridge too far?Trials · 2023Article
- Staphylococcus aureus hitchhiking from colonization to bacteremia via Candida within ICU infection prevention studies: a proof of concept modelling.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2023Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Selective digestive decontamination (SDD) regimens, variously constituted with topical antibiotic prophylaxis (TAP) and protocolized parenteral antibiotic prophylaxis (PPAP), appear highly effective for preventing ICU-acquired infections but only within randomized concurrent control trials (RCCT's). Confusingly, SDD is also a concept which, if true, implies population benefit. The SDD concept can finally be reified in humans using the broad accumulated evidence base, including studies of TAP and PPAP that used non-concurrent controls (NCC), as a natural experiment. However, this test implicates overall population harm with higher event rates associated with SDD use within the ICU context.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.