Safety and Efficacy of Acetaminophen in the Intensive Care Unit.
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2016-02-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The intensive care unit (ICU) team needs to know what effects acetaminophen has in critically
ill patients. Acetaminophen is better known as Tylenol. It is the drug given to reduce fever.
Most research that has looked at how safe and effective this drug is, has been done with
healthy people. Those studies tell us it is safe and works well to bring down fever.
This may not be true for the ICU patient. Some research found acetaminophen was not as good
at reducing fever as expected in the ICU. Fever helps to fight infection so it may help
patients get better, but it is also stressful. When you have fever, you to need more oxygen,
and your heart beats faster. If you have a fever after brain injury, you are less likely to
make a full recovery. In patients with brain injury, a weak heart or trouble breathing we
should treat fever. If we can predict how well acetaminophen will reduce fever, we can decide
if this drug is enough, or other treatments are also needed.
If you do not have problems with your brain, heart, or lungs, it is safe to not treat fever.
When you give this drug to treat fever, the body cools itself by sweating, and bringing hot
blood to the skin's surface. These changes do not affect healthy people. Research suggests
ICU patients may be at risk for sudden drop in blood pressure.
Our study will answer 2 questions: 1) When acetaminophen is given to treat fever in ICU
patients, are they more likely to have a drop in blood pressure? 2) How much will
acetaminophen reduce fever in ICU patients? We will study ICU patients with a fever who can
safely get, or not get this drug. This information will help us decide when and how to treat
fever in the ICU.