Neuromuscular Blockade in the Intentive Care Unit, an Observational Study.

Neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs) are usually administered during anesthesia for endotracheal tube placement or surgical interventions. But their use is also common in the medical intensive care unit (ICU) (1, 2). Together with sedation and analgesia, they are mainly used in continuous infusion in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrom (ARDS) (3, 4), but also in post-cardiac arrest survivor under hypothermia to prevent shivering (5), in abdominal compartment syndrome (6), in severe traumatic brain injury with uncontrolled intra-cranial pressure (7) and severe asthma among others.

A monitoring of the treatment is recommended (8) and several monitoring techniques exists: qualitative clinical monitoring is known to be inefficient, qualitative clinical monitoring using scores such as the BSAS (9) or monitoring using peripheral nerve stimulation (train-of-four (TOF) (10)) or other devices such as accelerometry or electromyography.

As opposed to their use in the operating room where the interest of the monitoring is proven, there are discrepancy between studies on whether it is useful to monitor NMBAs in the ICU. For instance, Strange et al. did not observe any advantage of the use of a protocol of NMBAs administration (11), and Baumann et al. came to the same conclusions. However, more recently (12), Hraeich et al. found that the monitoring of NMBAs dosage guided by the TOF allowed to significantly reduce the dose administered during ADRS (13).

Thus, in the ICU, although guidelines recommend to monitor NMBAs administration (8), the level of evidence regarding the interest of monitoring and the device to use for such a monitoring is low.

The investigators propose to conduct a prospective multicentric observational study to describe the current practice in the use of NMBAs in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU. As a primary objective the investigators will describe the prevalence of NMBAs use in the ICU. As a secondary objective, the investigator will investigate the impact of protocol and/or monitoring devices of NMBAs on the dose administered and clinical outcome endpoints, such as in-ICU mortality, duration of mechanical ventilation or acquired neuromyopathy or other complications of NMBAs.

• Inclusion criteria

• Adult Patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit
• Patient under invasive mechanical ventilation
• Administration of at least a single dose of neuromuscular blocking agent
• Exclusion criteria :

• Administration of a single dose of Succinylcholine or Rocuronium for a rapid-sequence intubation
• Moribund patient whose life expectancy is less than 24 hours
• Patient under 18 years old
• Patient under legal guardianship.
• Pregnant women
• Patient already included previously in the study
• Absence of health insurance in France
• Neuromuscular blocking agent administered outside the ICU (i.e. in the operating room)