MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--C. R. Bard, Inc. (NYSE: BCR) today announced the publication of the North American Silver-Coated Endotracheal Tube (NASCENT) clinical study results in the August 20, 2008 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The NASCENT study – which enrolled 2,003 patients in 54 hospitals – evaluated the efficacy of the Agento® I.C. silver-coated endotracheal tube (ETT) in the reduction of microbiologically confirmed ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the Agento® I.C. silver-coated ETT in November 2007 for the prevention of VAP in patients intubated for 24 hours or longer. As reported in JAMA, the NASCENT study demonstrated that the Agento® I.C. silver-coated ETT reduced the incidence of VAP by 36% in the overall study population, with a 48% reduction in the first 10 days of intubation.
