Evidence Hub

Personalized automatic management of tracheal cuff pressure and subglottic secretions drainage to prevent pneumonia in critically ill intubated patients. The MICROINHALO multicenter randomized controlled trial

G. De Pascale, S. Cutuli, Maria Vargas, A. Cortegiani, L. Dalfino, Massimiliano Greco, Silvia Baroni, Clelia Esposito et al.

Intensive Care Medicine, 2026

270 participants

Abstract

The MICROINHALO trial investigated whether personalized management of endotracheal tube cuff pressure (Pcuff) based on exhaled CO2 measurement combined with automatic subglottic space drainage (SSD) may prevent tracheal colonization in critically ill intubated patients. This cluster-randomized, international, open-label trial (NCT05403320) enrolled adult patients at 10 ICUs. They were randomly assigned to receive either an endotracheal tube equipped with automatic Pcuff management and SSD, or a conventional one with manual Pcuff management and manual SSD. The primary endpoint of the study was the rate of bacterial tracheal colonization (> 103 CFU/mL) on day 3 after intubation. Among 270 randomized patients, 250 were included in the analysis: 127 allocated to the automatic management group and 123 to the manual management group. Bacterial tracheal colonization on day 3 occurred in 47 (37%) patients in the automatic management group and in 51 (41.5%) patients among controls (absolute difference − 4% [95% CI − 16 to 8], P = 0.52). The rate of clinically diagnosed (12.6% vs. 24.4%, P = 0.016) and microbiologically confirmed ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) (10.2% vs. 19.5%, P = 0.039) was significantly lower in the automatic management group, along with a lower percentage of Pcuff values outside the safety range (10.2% vs. 24.4%, P < 0.001) and a higher daily SSD volume (25 [8–41] mL vs. 10.5 [6–17] mL, P < 0.001). Among critically ill intubated patients, personalized…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 270 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free