A specialist team from RNSH’s Intensive Care Unit will launch a clinical trial to determine if giving antibiotics to those with a severe brain injury early in their treatment will have a dramatic impact on their recovery.

The large-scale trial will be led by Senior Intensive Care Specialist A/Professor Anthony Delaney after a $6.3 million research grant from the Federal Government.

The trial will also be driven by the district’s new Executive Director of Research A/Professor Naomi Hammond, and ICU specialists Professor Simon Finfer, Dr Chris Andersen and Neuroscience Intensive Care Research Nurse and PhD candidate Emily Fitzgerald.

A/Professor Delaney has welcomed the significant funding for this research. 

“Patients with a severe acute brain injury who require support for their breathing in intensive care are at a high risk of developing a lung infection, and those who do develop an infection have a higher risk of dying and may not recover as well as they could from the brain injury,” he said. 

More than 3,000 people across 50 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand are expected to be recruited to the clinical trial.

Anthony said the benefits of this new treatment approach could be life changing.

“For patients who survive a severe acute brain injury, limiting further brain damage by preventing infection may avoid the need for decades of care and improve quality of life.” 

For more details about the clinical trial, check out Channel 9’s news feature via this link: https://bit.ly/4bJUJWc.