Background
critically ill, acute traumatic brain injury, VAP, TBI, Dysbiosis, sepsis
CRITICALLY ILL, LUNG DISEASES, VENTILATOR-ASSOCIATED PNEUMONIA (VAP), DYSBIOSIS, SEPSIS
Enteral nutrition is indicated in critically ill patients mechanically ventilated in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), due to their catabolic and stress states [In patients with acute traumatic brain injury (TBI), the use of specialized diets enriched with immune nutrients such as omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and arginine could be an important supplement [Recent studies have highlighted the presence of a “gut-lung axis,” since alterations of intestinal microbiota communities may have profound effect on lung diseases [In a plethora of lung diseases, the microbiota changes drastically, determining the dysbiosis [Dysbiosis has been recently investigated in mechanically ventilated patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) or sepsis, but little is known about the influence of lung microbiota composition in development of VAP in ICU patients. Furthermore, no data are available about the role of the nutrition enriched specific nutrients in modulating the lung microbiota [For these reasons, the aims of this study are to evaluate the impact of specific nutrients on the lung microbiota and the variation of normal respiratory microbiota in TBI patients developing VAP in ICU.