Non-invasive Ventilation and Dexmedetomidine in Critically Ill Adults: An International Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial (inDEX Trial)
Non-Invasive ventilation (NIV) is a life saving intervention for patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF). Some patients are not able to tolerate the NIV intervention and ultimately fail, requiring the use of invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) and intubation. Sedation may improve a patient's NIV tolerance. However, this practice has not been adopted by intensivists as the risk of over-sedation resulting in respiratory depression, inability to protect the airway, and inadvertent need for intubation are all large deterrents of sedative use in NIV. The Non-invasive Ventilation and Dexmedetomidine in Critically Ill Adults: a Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial (inDEX) is looking to evaluate the effectiveness of dexmedetomidine compared to placebo in reducing non-invasive ventilation failures in patients admitted to the hospital with acute respiratory failure.
• Age ≥18 years
• Patient receiving any NIV modality for acute respiratory failure of any etiology
• Admitted to ICU, PACU, step-down unit (surgical or medical), or emergency department(with planned admission to a monitored setting) or equivalent unit where hemodynamics and respiratory status can be monitored, and NIV is permitted; and
• Presence of one or more of the following after optimized NIV treatment:
‣ Agitation (Defined as a Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale \[RASS\] score of ≥+2 or a Riker Sedation-Agitation Scale \[SAS\] score of ≥5) (Appendix 1 Table 2 and Table 3)
⁃ Patient expresses intolerance or requests removal of NIV secondary to self-reported discomfort, anxiety, or claustrophobia
⁃ Other reason that the physician judges the patient to be intolerant of NIV or agitated, not captured above, or feels that the patient would benefit from titrated sedation for other reasons.