Prevention of Infections in Cardiac Surgery study (PICS): study protocol for a pragmatic cluster-randomized factorial crossover pilot trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A wide range of prophylactic antibiotic regimens are used for patients undergoing open-heart cardiac surgery. This reflects clinical equipoise in choice and duration of antibiotic agents. Although individual-level randomized control trials (RCT) are considered the gold standard when evaluating the efficacy of an intervention, this approach is highly resource intensive and a cluster RCT can be more appropriate for testing clinical effectiveness in a real-world setting.

Methods/design

We are conducting a factorial cluster-randomized crossover pilot trial in cardiac surgery patients to evaluate the feasibility of this design for a definite trial to evaluate the optimal duration and choice of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis. Specifically, we will evaluate: (a) th

SUBMITTER: van Oostveen RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6296086 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature