Septic Shock Clinical Trials

The goal of the CASPER-Pilot study is to develop clinical decision support (CDS) technology within Epic to randomize patients with septic shock to early versus standard of care vasopressin initiation. The primary aim of this study will be to test the hypothesis that CDS technology can be utilized to create two distinct cohorts of patients reflecting different times of vasopressin initiation based on norepinephrine dose requirements. Secondarily, this study will evaluate the proportion of patients whose norepinephrine dose at the time of vasopressin initiation is within the specified range for the intervention arm they were randomized to. Other outcomes of evaluation will include adherence to the developed CDS technology and comparison of clinical outcomes between the two treatment arms. Read Less

SHIPSS is a multi-institutional, prospective, controlled, randomized, double-blinded interventional trial that will examine the potential benefits and risks of adjunctive hydrocortisone prescribed for children with fluid and vasoactive-inotropic refractory septic shock. It is hypothesized that adjunctive hydrocortisone will significantly reduce the incidence of new and progressive organ dysfunction (primary outcome) and proportion of children with poor outcomes, defined as death or severely impaired health-related quality of life (HRQL) (secondary outcome), as assessed at 28 days following study enrollment (randomization). Read Less

This pilot study will enroll 20 patients with septic shock and require emergent vasopressor support in the emergency department (ED). The primary objective of the study is to determine the feasibility of early peripheral administration of angiotensin II for treatment of septic shock in the ED Read Less

This study is being conducted to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of VBI-S in elevating the blood pressure of septic shock patients with absolute or relative hypovolemia. Read Less

The goal of this quasi-experimental interventional study is to determine the effectiveness of a multifaceted stewardship intervention in reducing overall vancomycin use in five tertiary care Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). There are two groups of subjects in this study: PICU clinicians/sepsis stakeholders and patients admitted to one of the participating PICUs during the study period. The intervention will at a minimum include: * Implementation of a clinical guideline indicating when vancomycin should and should not be used * Unit-level feedback on overall vancomycin use within and across centers * Clinician education. Read Less

The Non-Invasive Cardiac Output Monitor (NICOM) is a non-invasive monitor capable of measuring cardiac output (CO) and cardiac index (CI), and stroke volume (SV) and stroke volume index (SVI) based on heart rate. Conceptually NICOM is a technology that utilizes a dynamic response characteristic in assessing the need for fluid administration, whereby SVI is measured before and after a fluid challenge with more fluid given only if SVI increases significantly with administered fluid. Dynamic response technologies are intended to replace older, "static" measures such as central venous pressure (CVP) and pulmonary capillary wedge pressures (PCWP) which are single point measurements utilized to assess the need to administer fluid. The aim is to pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of using The Non-Invasive Cardiac Output Monitor (NICOM) technology for goal-directed fluid resuscitation in adult inpatients with sepsis associated acute hypotension and/or evidence of septic shock (Lactate \>= 4.0). Read Less

Norepinephrine is a catecholamine that is the first-line vasopressor for septic shock. The addition of non-catecholamine vasopressors, including vasopressin and angiotensin-II may be used in adults with septic shock that have inadequate mean arterial pressure while on norepinephrine. Uncertainty exists regarding the timing of initiation of these agents and there is a lack of data comparing their safety and efficacy. The current literature suggests that earlier initiation of angiotensin-II will have a more significant reduction on norepinephrine-equivalent dose compared to later initiation. In addition, approximately half of patients initiated on vasopressin do not have an early hemodynamic response 6 hours after initiation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of angiotensin-II when used as the second vasopressor agent for septic shock. Read Less

Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. It is the most expensive healthcare condition to treat in United States and has a mortality rate of nearly 30%. It is widely known that exaggerated inflammation and imbalance between sympathetic and parasympathetic arms of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) contribute to progression and adverse outcomes in sepsis. The role of unchecked inflammation and unregulated ANS as a potential treatment target is an important gap in our knowledge that should be explored. Cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway (CAP) is an intricate network where the ANS senses inflammation by vagus nerve afferents and tries to regulate it by vagus nerve efferents to the reticuloendothelial system. The central hypothesis of this pilot clinical trial is that transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (TVNS) at tragus of the external ear can activate the CAP to suppress inflammation and improve autonomic imbalance as measured by inflammatory cytokine levels and heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. The investigators plan to randomize patients with septic shock into active and sham stimulation groups and study the effects of vagal stimulation on inflammatory cytokines, HRV and a clinical severity score of sepsis. Both groups will continue to receive the standard of care treatment for sepsis irrespective of group assignments. The investigators hypothesize that 4 hours of TVNS will suppress inflammatory markers and improve the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic arms of ANS as measured by HRV, resulting in improved Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score (SOFA). The preliminary data generated from this pilot study will lay the foundation for a larger clinical trial. Read Less

Purpose: To assess the prognostic role of Handheld Vital Microscopy (HVM) and evaluate levels of endothelial glycocalyx (eGC) breakdown in patients demonstrating Hemodynamic Incoherence (HI), to elucidate a mechanistic link between the eGC and HI in order to inform prognostic enrichment of future resuscitation trials. We will serially evaluate microhemodynamics (MiH) and macro hemodynamics (maH) and the perfused boundary region (PBR, an visual proxy for eGC thickness) using HVM, and a validated circulating biomarker of eGC integrity. Read Less

Since the introduction of sepsis bundles, there have been multiple published trials that have demonstrated a consistent, strong association between implementation of sepsis "bundles" (3-hour bundle) and improved survival. The current proposal is a Hybrid 2, pragmatic, cluster randomized clinical effectiveness/implementation trial evaluating mortality and respiratory failure-based outcomes, in patients admitted to the emergency department with sepsis, comparing the effectiveness of implementation of the hour-1 bundle to 3-hour bundle, while facilitating adherence to both bundles. In addition, 4 distinct sepsis phenotypes will be derived from routine clinical data to identify specific patient phenotypes that allow for a more precision-based application of sepsis bundles in future studies. Read Less