reduction in new infections. This finding requires
confirmation.
Trial registration Current Controlled Trials
ISRCTN87144826
INTRODUCTION
Infection and sepsis are major causes of increased mortality,
morbidity, and resource use in intensive care
units. They are associated with both illness and drug
related impairment of the immune system, compounded
by malnutrition often observed in patients
admitted to critical care.1
The enteral feeding route is preferred for critically ill
patients because of its reduced costs and risk of infective
complications.2 Parenteral nutrition, however, has
an important role because many intensive care patients
have gastrointestinal dysfunction.3
Recent systematic reviews have suggested that parenteral
administration of glutamine to critically ill
patients reduces mortality (risk ratio 0.71 (95% confidence
interval 0.55 to 0.92)) and new infections (risk
ratio 0.76 (0.62 to 0.93)).4 Selenium supplementation
in critical illness has also been shown to reduce mortality
(risk ratio 0.84 (0.67 to 1.05)) but with little effect on
infections (risk ratio 0.93 (0.70 to 1.23)).4 However,
these systematic reviews are based on small trials,
many of poor quality. These drawbacks, and concerns
that there may be publication and reporting bias, mean
that large, well conducted randomised trials are still
required for definitive results.
We therefore conducted a large randomised controlled
trial examining whether the inclusion of glutamine,
selenium, or both in a standard isonitrogenous,
isocaloric preparation of parenteral nutrition influenced
the rate of new infections and mortality in critically
ill patients.
METHODS
The full protocol for the trial is described elsewhere.5