Mucolytics for Intubated Asthmatic Children: A National Survey of United Kingdom Paediatric Intensive Care Consultants

Table 1

Summary of survey questions and responses.

What is your title? ()	Head of department or clinical lead	15%
	Other PICU consultants	85%
An asthmatic child has been intubated and admitted to your PICU with acute, severe asthma: would you prescribe rhDNase? ()	Never	37%
	Occasionally	40%
	Sometimes	16%
	Usually/often	6%
	Always	1%
What route of rhDNase administration would you use? ()	Nebulisation (via ETT)	56%
	Intratracheal
	(i) Blind, diluted with saline	20%
	(ii) Bronchoscopic guidance	15%
	(iii) Depends on clinical condition	7%
	No opinion	2%
If this child were to receive intratracheal rhDNase, what would be the optimal dose? ()	No opinion	44%
	2 mg/m^2 BSA	4%
	4 mg/m^2 BSA	0%
	0.1 mg/kg	0%
	0.2 mg/kg	16%
	Other	36%
Would you prescribe/administer intratracheal hypertonic saline? ()	Never	46%
	Occasionally	39%
	Sometimes	13%
	Usually/often	2%
	Always	0%
Would you prescribe/administer intratracheal NAC (N-acetylcysteine)? ()	Never	81%
	Occasionally	17%
	Sometimes	1%
	Usually/often	1%
	Always	0%
Would you request a chest physiotherapist to treat the patient? ()	Never	1%
	Occasionally	15%
	Sometimes	18%
	Usually/often	29%
	Always	37%
Would you be willing to consider enrolling intubated asthmatic patients admitted to your PICU into a rhDNase trial? ()	Yes	87%
	No	13%
If an RCT was undertaken in intubated asthmatic children, with one group receiving intratracheal instillation of rhDNase, what intratracheal substance should the control group receive? ()	Placebo (0.9% NaCl)	69%
	NAC	4%
	Hypertonic saline	15%
	Other	12%

Key: “Never” is 0%; “occasionally” is <33% of cases; “sometimes” is 33%–66% of cases; usually/often is >66% of cases; always is 100% of cases.