The purpose of the study was to see if probiotics can prevent gastrointestinal colonization with multidrug-resistant organisms in critically ill patients.
Probiotics are cultures of selected live microorganisms (most often lactic acid bacteria.) Probiotics can, in theory, confer a health benefit. There has been an ongoing scientific debate about the effectiveness of probiotics; this is in light of the food industry producing many “probiotic products.” With the new study, medicine, rather than food, was the application.
The study over a 21-month period looked at 70 patients who were admitted to intensive care units at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis . Each patient was given a beneficial bacterium as a probiotic: Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. The aim was to determine if the probiotic could prevent gastrointestinal colonization of multi-drug resistant organisms, such as Clostridium difficile, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Each of these organisms is associated with hospital acquired infections and poses a risk to those with weakened immune systems. The organisms listed are resultant to more than one common antimicrobials, making infections very hard to treat.
The idea behind the study is that if sufficient numbers of a harmless bacterium (as a probiotic) is given to patients these will grow in the intestines of patients. Should a pathogen be present or “acquired” through surgery, the probiotic organism will out-grow the pathogen and thereby prevent an infection from occurring.
Each patient was studied for 14 days, whether they remained in hospital for this duration or discharged. The study found there was no significant difference in overall infection rates relating to any multi-drug resistant organisms.
Although the probiotic was found not to cause harm to the patients, it did not address the rate of infection.
It should be noted that the study only looked at one probiotic and one group of patients in one setting. Furthermore, each patient was only given one dose of the probiotic. While this particular study was unsuccessful, research will continue in the probiotic field. Studies, for example, into bowel disease, have shown probiotics to be seemingly more successful.
The findings are published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. The research is titled “Randomized Controlled Trial to Determine the Impact of Probiotic Administration on Colonization With Multidrug-Resistant Organisms in Critically Ill Patients.”
