• Gennaro De Pascale, Brunella Posteraro, Sonia D'Arrigo, Giorgia Spinazzola, Rita Gaspari, Giuseppe Bello, Luca Maria Montini, Salvatore Lucio Cutuli, Domenico Luca Grieco, Valentina Di Gravio, Giulia De Angelis, Riccardo Torelli, Elena De Carolis, Mario Tumbarello, Maurizio Sanguinetti, and Massimo Antonelli.
• Dipartimento di Scienza dell'Emergenza, Anestesiologiche e della Rianimazione - UOC di Anestesia, Rianimazione, Terapia Intensiva e Tossicologia Clinica, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Largo A. Gemelli 8, 00168, Rome, Italy. gennaro.depascalemd@gmail.com.
• Crit Care. 2020 Sep 5; 24 (1): 550.

Background(1,3)-β-D-Glucan has been widely used in clinical practice for the diagnosis of invasive Candida infections. However, such serum biomarker showed potential to guide antimicrobial therapy in order to reduce the duration of empirical antifungal treatment in critically ill septic patients with suspected invasive candidiasis.MethodsThis was a single-centre, randomized, open-label clinical trial in which critically ill patients were enrolled during the admission to the intensive care unit (ICU). All septic patients who presented invasive Candida infection risk factors and for whom an empirical antifungal therapy was commenced were randomly assigned (1:1) in those stopping antifungal therapy if (1,3)-β-D-glucan was negative ((1,3)-β-D-glucan group) or those continuing the antifungal therapy based on clinical rules (control group). Serum 1,3-β-D-glucan was measured at the enrolment and every 48/72 h over 14 days afterwards. The primary endpoint was the duration of antifungal treatment in the first 30 days after enrolment.ResultsWe randomized 108 patients into the (1,3)-β-D-glucan (n = 53) and control (n = 55) groups. Median [IQR] duration of antifungal treatment was 2 days [1-3] in the (1,3)-β-D-glucan group vs. 10 days [6-13] in the control group (between-group absolute difference in means, 6.29 days [95% CI 3.94-8.65], p < 0.001). Thirty-day mortality was similar (28.3% [(1,3)-β-D-glucan group] vs. 27.3% [control group], p = 0.92) as well as the overall rate of documented candidiasis (11.3% [(1,3)-β-D-glucan group] vs. 12.7% [control group], p = 0.94), the length of mechanical ventilation (p = 0.97) and ICU stay (p = 0.23).ConclusionsIn critically ill septic patients admitted to the ICU at risk of invasive candidiasis, a (1,3)-β-D-glucan-guided strategy could reduce the duration of empirical antifungal therapy. However, the safety of this algorithm needs to be confirmed in future, multicentre clinical trial with a larger population.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03117439 , retrospectively registered on 18 April 2017.

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