The RE-ENERGIZE Study: RandomizEd Trial of ENtERal Glutamine to minimIZE Thermal Injury

Burn injuries represent a public health problem worldwide, ranked fourth in all injuries and are among the leading cause of disability adjusted life years in low and middle-income countries. More than in any other injury, the inflammation and catabolism associated with severe burns can exacerbate nutrient deficiencies, thereby predisposing patients to impaired immune function and increased risk of developing infectious complications, organ dysfunction, and death. Consequently, over the last few decades numerous trials have evaluated the impact of different nutrition/nutrient strategies in severe burns patients. Glutamine is of particular interest in this regard as it appears vital for a number of key stress-response pathways in serious illness. The existing randomized trials of glutamine supplementation in burns patients have suggested a significant reduction in mortality, infection, and hospital length of stay. However, in other critically ill patient populations, there is a signal of increased mortality associated with glutamine administration. Given this conflicting evidence, burn practitioners are either harming or saving lives with glutamine use. We hypothesize that the inexpensive therapeutic strategy tested in this multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial of supplemental enteral glutamine in 1200 severe burn injury patients will lead to lower morbidity and mortality and reduced health care costs in an otherwise very devastating and disabling injury worldwide.

In our pilot study (Critical Care Medicine, 2003, 31:2444) we found a protective effect of glutamine against blood infection in severely burned adult patients. In addition, a significant decrease in mortality was observed with glutamine. These results should be tested with a multi-center trial because our study was small and did not have mortality as an end point.

The specific aims of the study are to determine the overall treatment effect and safety of glutamine in burn patients. Clinical outcomes will be: mortality, time to discharge alive, incidence of acquired bacteremia due to Gram negative organisms, hospital mortality, duration of mechanical ventilation, ICU stay and hospital stay. The cost-effectiveness of glutamine administration will also be measured if the results show a decrease in length of care or a reduced incidence of acquired bacteremia due to Gram negative organisms with glutamine.

The study will be a large, multicenter, double-blind, pragmatic, randomized controlled trial of 1200 patients with severe burns randomly allocated to receive enteral glutamine or placebo. Randomization will be concealed and stratified by site allocating patients 1:1 to either glutamine or matching placebo by the method of permuted blocks of random undisclosed size within strata. Patients will be adults, a minimum of 18 years old, with deep 2nd and/or 3rd degree burns requiring grafting, and for patients age 18 - 39 years a (Total Body Surface Area) TBSA burn ≥ 20% or in the presence of an inhalation injury a minimum of 15% TBSA burn is required; for patients age 40 - 59 years a TBSA burn ≥ 15% is required; for patients aged 60 years or older a TBSA burn ≥ 10% is required. The study will include approximately 80 burn centers in Canada, the US, Europe and Latin America. Patients will receive glutamine or a placebo through their feeding tube, every 4 hours or TID or QID if taking things by mouth, for a total of 0.5 g/kg/day for patients with a BMI <35. Patients with a BMI ≥35 will receive 0.5 g/kg/day based on an obesity-adjusted body weight. The study intervention will be administered until ≥7 days after the last successful grafting operation or until discharge from acute care unit or 3 months from admission, whichever comes first. Resuscitation, nutritional support, pain management, infection control and surgical care will be done according to standardized procedures.

The Data will be collected and managed by a professional and centralized organization for multi centres clinical research (Clinical Evaluation Research Unit, Kingston, Ontario, Canada).