Silver ventilator tubes cut pneumonia risk

Silver coated ventilator tubes reduce infections and cut the risk of pneumonia in severely ill patients. Silver is widely used as an antimicrobial agent and has been shown to reduce bacterial pneumonia infections in animals. To assess if a silver coating would help reduce infections in humans, researchers from America tested the devices in 1,509 patients who were placed on a ventilator for more than 24 hours.It was found that ventilator patients given silver-coated breathing tubes had significantly fewer cases of pneumonia than those with untreated ventilator tubes. Of the 1,509 patients who had tubes in their trachea for 24 hours or longer, 5 percent of those with silver-coated tubes developed ventilator-associated pneumonia, compared with 7 percent of patients with uncoated tubes. It was noted that the antimicrobial tubes also delayed the time it took for ventilator-associated pneumonia to develop compared with those using a similar uncoated tube. The tubes, however, did not reduce death risk and the findings of the study were limited because many patients could not provide informed consent, reducing the size and overall power of the study.Nonetheless, the findings suggest that the tubes may offer a way to reduce the incidence of pneumonia, a common and often deadly infection.

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