The Active Bathing to Eliminate (ABATE) Infection trial compared routine bathing to decolonization with universal chlorhexidine and targeted nasal mupirocin in non-critical-care units. Similar interventions have been found to reduce multidrug-resistant pathogens and bloodstream infections in intensive care units (ICUs), and this was the first large-scale trial in non-critical-care units. The primary outcome was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) clinical cultures attributed to participating units.

“We found that universal decolonization did not reduce infection in the overall population, but in post-hoc analyses of patients with medical devices the regimen was associated with significant reductions in all-cause bloodstream infections and MRSA or VRE clinical cultures.” —Huang et al. The Lancet 2019

The ABATE Infection trial was a large-scale pragmatic trial involving approximately189,000 patients in the baseline period and 340,000 patients in the intervention period across 194 non-critical-care units in 53 hospitals. The trial was one of the first NIH Collaboratory Trials, and in keeping with the Collaboratory’s mission, the investigators have helped expand the knowledge base about the design, conduct, and dissemination of pragmatic clinical trials.