HYDROcortisone Versus Placebo for Severe HospItal-acquired Pneumonia in Intensive Care Patients: the HYDRO-SHIP Study

Introduction and Objectives: the use of corticosteroids in patients with severe community pneumonia, bacterial infection which kills lots of patients around the world, reduces morbimortality. However, to our knowledge, there are no studies with steroids for patients in intensive care with nosocomial pneumonia, among which those with ventilator associated pneumonia, infections which carry a high mortality rate. The treatment for those diseases involves intensive care and antibiotics, but there is a need for inexpensive, adjuvant therapies which improve the outcome for those patients. Therefore, the objective of this study is to compare hydrocortisone versus placebo, both with standard therapy, in the outcome of critical care patients diagnosed with nosocomial pneumonia.

Methods: multicenter randomized, open-label, controlled trial, with two parallel groups: hydrocortisone or placebo, associated with nosocomial pneumonia's standard treatment. Patients with viral or other etiologies of pneumonia will be excluded, as well as corticosteroids chronical users, or patients with conditions which demand this type of therapy. Intravenous 100mg of hydrocortisone and normal saline (the placebo) will be tested every eight hours for five days or until intensive care unit (ICU) discharge or until the patient dies. The sample will be of 180 patients, 90 in each group, in different ICUs in Brazil. The primary outcome will be early clinical failure between the third and seventh days of the patient's inclusion in the study. The secondary outcomes will be survival and mortality in both groups, need for intubation, mechanical ventilation, vasoactive drugs and dialysis, lengths of stay in the hospital and in the ICU and radiological progression. Moreover, we will analyze adverse events and there will be a safety interim analysis when 25% of the whole sample is recruited, which may interrupt the study in case of a high frequency of such events (> 15% grade 3 or 4 as defined by the FDA). Finally, we will conduct an efficacy interim analysis when 50% of the sample is recruited. The study will be interrupted only if there is a statistical significant difference regarding the primary outcome with p < 0.001 (Haybittle-Peto criteria).

Discussion, risks, and benefits: this will be the first multicenter randomized trial to test hydrocortisone plus standard therapy in critical care patients with nosocomial pneumonia. This intervention is inexpensive and may improve the outcome of those patients, besides having an acceptable side effects profile. Weighing the benefits and risks of this study, as well as its strengths and potential weaknesses, it is believed that its realization is justified, in addition to bringing important advances in the field of intensive care.