Clinical Research Directory

Lung Ultrasound for Guiding Antibiotic Use in Pediatric Pneumonia

Pneumonia is a major cause of illness and death in children, with an annual incidence of about 3.3 per 1,000 in those under five years old, many requiring hospitalization. The diagnosis is challenging due to the absence of a universally accepted gold standard, leading to variability in emergency settings. Current guidelines recommend diagnosis based on history and physical examination, which do not reliably differentiate pneumonia from other respiratory infections or identify whether it is bacterial or viral in nature. This uncertainty can lead to the unnecessary use of antibiotics. Commonly used chest X-rays have limitations such as low sensitivity, moderate interobserver reliability, and the inability to distinguish bacterial from viral pneumonia. In contrast, lung ultrasound has shown high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing pneumonia in children. However, lung ultrasound also cannot reliably distinguish between bacterial and viral causes and might lead to increased antibiotic prescriptions by detecting minor lung consolidations not seen on chest X-rays. Despite these issues, lung ultrasound is widely used in pediatric pulmonary assessment. The primary objective of the study is to determine if using lung ultrasound for diagnosing pneumonia in children can reduce antibiotic prescriptions compared to the standard care approach-which mainly relies on clinical diagnosis (often supplemented by chest X-ray and blood tests in selected cases). The secondary objective is to assess how frequently lung ultrasound impacts management decisions during a single clinical visit, beyond the information provided by history and physical examination. The third objective is to compare the diagnostic accuracy of lung ultrasound-supported diagnosis with existing diagnostic methods. The study hypothesizes that lung ultrasound results can act as a decision modifier, similar to other clinical tools and examination findings. However, a lack of consensus on specific lung ultrasound parameters and their clinical correlations contributes to variability in managing suspected pneumonia, potentially leading to antibiotic overuse. Eligible participants are children aged three to ten years who are in good general condition and clinically stable, presenting with signs and symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection indicative of pneumonia. Exclusion criteria include children outside the specified age range, those recently hospitalized, those who have undergone prior chest imaging, those already on antibiotic therapy, those with severe clinical instability, and those with underlying conditions predisposing them to severe or recurrent pneumonia. These criteria help ensure that the study population represents general pediatric community-acquired pneumonia cases, avoiding biases from high-risk patients. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide evidence on whether lung ultrasound can serve as a reliable tool to guide antibiotic prescriptions, thereby reducing unnecessary antibiotic use in the management of pediatric pneumonia.

Reducing Overuse of Antibiotics at Discharge Home

The goal of this two-arm parallel cluster-randomized trial of 40 hospitals is to test the effectiveness of the ROAD Home Intervention on days of antibiotic overuse at discharge in patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) or urinary tract infection (UTI). The main question it aims to answer is: Does an antibiotic stewardship approach that is customized to the needs, goals, and resources of a hospital (i.e., the ROAD Home Intervention) compared to standard stewardship approaches reduce antibiotic overuse at discharge in hospitalized patients with CAP and UTI? The investigators will randomize 20 hospitals in the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium (HMS) to the intervention group and 20 HMS hospitals to the "usual care" control group. During the study the investigators will: (a) assess baseline performance, existing stewardship strategies, hospital priorities, and resources; (b) develop a customized discharge stewardship "suite" for each intervention hospital based on the findings of the baseline assessment and informed by the ROAD Home Framework; and (c) support hospitals in selecting strategies and creating an implementation blueprint to be implemented over 12 to 15 months. After the intervention period, the investigators will compare days of antibiotic overuse at discharge and patient outcomes between intervention and "usual care" hospitals. It is hypothesized that hospitals randomized to the ROAD Home Intervention will have fewer days of antibiotic overuse at discharge compared to "stewardship as usual" control hospitals.

Vancomycin Reduction Practices (VRP) in the NICU

This multi-center, cluster randomized study aimed at improving implementation of vancomycin reducing practices (VRP) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Sites will be recruited and randomized to receive either external facilitation or no external facilitation to assess the effect on center-level fidelity to the core components of VRP implementation. Interventions available to both study arms are directed at hospital staff and includes identification of local champions, educational outreach, unit-level audit \& feedback, and use of a clinical decision support tool.

EARLY Antibiotics aDAptation in Severe Pneumonia(The EARLY ADAPT Study)

The objective of the study is to determine whether rapid multiplex PCR testing of respiratory samples can reduce exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics in intensive care unit patients with suspected or confirmed ventilator-associated pneumonia, compared to standard diagnostic methods. As secondary objectives, the investigators will study antibiotic management and overall antibiotic consumption, as well as escalation or de-escalation events. The investigators will study the potential clinical impact of using multiplex PCR to see if the length of stay in the intensive care unit is reduced, as well as the duration of mechanical ventilation.

BrighT STAR LIBRA: Leveraging Implementation Science for Blood Culture Reduction Approaches

This study will compare two strategies that target distinct determinants of blood culture overuse in an exploratory, hybrid, pilot trial in 8 PICUs. It aims to determine if there is any association between specific strategies used to reduce blood culture overuse on unit-wide blood culture rates, patient safety, and concurrently explore aspects of the implementation process (acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness).

Antibiotic Prescription in Children Hospitalized for Community-acquired Pneumonia

A study to observe how often antibiotics are prescribed in children hospitalized for pneumonia and how doctors decide if a child needs antibiotics or not. Parent satisfaction will also be recorded.

Antibiotic Usage Prior to OnabotulinumtoxinA Injection

Intradetrusor injection of onabotulinumtoxinA, which is performed through a cystoscopic procedure, has been demonstrated to be efficacious in the treatment of both neurogenic and non-neurogenic overactive bladder (OAB), and is FDA approved as a treatment for overactive bladder. Intradetrusor of onabotulinumtoxinA is currently standard of care of patients with OAB who have persistent OAB symptoms despite behavioral therapies and oral medication treatments for OAB. As one of the main adverse events associated with intradetrusor injection of onabotulinumtoxinA is UTI, and published guidelines for cystoscopic procedures with manipulation recommend the use of prophylactic antibiotics, a single dose of prophylactic antibiotic is administered prior to this procedure. However, these recommendations are primarily based on data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving antimicrobial prophylaxis during transurethral resection of the prostate. A previously published prospective study demonstrated that the rate of post-procedural UTI did not differ amongst patients with neurogenic bladder who did not receive prophylactic antibiotics and were asymptomatic for UTI, regardless of whether they had sterile urine cultures or asymptomatic bacteriuria, suggesting that patients who are not symptomatic for UTI may not require antibiotic prophylaxis prior to intradetrusor onabotulinumtoxinA injection. Studies have reported that up to 50% of antibiotic usage is inappropriate, leading to unnecessary exposure of patients to potential complications of antibiotic therapy, including Clostridium difficile infection which can cause recurrent diarrhea that may progress to sepsis and death, increasing antibiotic resistances, as well as dermal/allergic and gastro-intestinal manifestations. Therefore, in an effort to optimize antibiotic use, the investigators propose a prospective, randomized study to formally evaluate the differences in UTI frequency in subjects who have a negative urinalysis and are not symptomatic for UTI and receive prophylactic antibiotics at the time of intradetrusor onabotulinumtoxinA injection compared to those who do not receive prophylactic antibiotics at the time of injection. The proposed study seeks to evaluate the current practice standard of antibiotic prophylaxis prior to intradetrusor onabotulinumtoxin injection.

Early Neutropenic Fever De-escalation of Antibiotics Study

This is a randomized, open label clinical trial among individuals with hematologic conditions. The trial aims to evaluate the safety and clinical outcomes of de-escalating antibiotic therapy among stable individuals diagnosed with neutropenic fever, in which no bacterial infection has been identified.