# Pulsed UV Xenon Disinfection to Prevent Resistant Healthcare Associated Infection

> **NIH AHRQ R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2020 · $128,454

## Abstract

Background: In 2011, 721,800 healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) were reported in the United States.
The hospital environment has been increasingly recognized as an important determinant of HAI acquisition and
prevention of HAIs has become a top priority for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Terminal cleaning of a patient room is recognized as a critically important process to help prevent HAIs and
involves extensive cleaning and disinfection of the room after a patient has been discharged from the room and
before the subsequent patient has been admitted to the room. Pulsed xenon ultraviolet light (PX-UV) has been
shown to be effective in killing a variety of pathogens including endospores of Clostridium difficile. PX-UV
works quickly – the entire cycle time for use in a hospital room is 15 minutes. To date, the clinical impact of
adding PX-UV to terminal cleaning has not been demonstrated in clinical trials with sham controls or in a
crossover design. The long-term goal of this project is to establish the efficacy of terminal cleaning plus PX-UV
in reducing rates of HAIs due to the following multi-drug resistant oranisms (MDROs): C. difficile, vancomycin-
resistant enterococci (VRE), Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichiae coli producing extended-spectrum beta-
lactamases (ESBLs), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Acinetobacter baumannii. The
objective of this application is to conduct a prospective, sham controlled, double-blinded, interventional
crossover trial to compare standard terminal cleaning plus PX-UV (intervention) with standard terminal
cleaning plus sham PX-UV (control) with crossover at 12 months, following a 6-month washout period.
Outcome measures include the rates of HAIs, as well as the recurrence of genetically identical clinical strains
of HAIs among patients on study units. The study will be conducted in 2 hospitals covering 16 total hospital
units at Detroit Medical Center. Our central hypothesis is that the addition of PX-UV to standard terminal
cleaning will be associated with a significant reduction in the rate of HAIs, as well as a reduction in the
recovery of genetically identical strains of MDROs. The impact of PX-UV disinfection on rates of HAIs on study
units will be determined by comparing rates of HAIs on a) study units where PX-UV is added to standard
terminal cleaning practices to b) units where a sham UV disinfection system is added to standard terminal
cleaning; and by comparing rates of HAIs on the same medical ward during each of two 12-month phases of a
crossover study (one phase when a PX-UV device is added and one when a sham device is added to standard
terminal cleaning). At the conclusion of the proposed project, novel data will be generated from this rigorously
controlled study regarding the effectiveness of PX-UV in reducing HAIs in a representative, real-world
healthcare setting.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10007883
- **Project number:** 5R01HS024709-06
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** John Peter Mills
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $128,454
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-10-02 → 2021-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10007883

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10007883, Pulsed UV Xenon Disinfection to Prevent Resistant Healthcare Associated Infection (5R01HS024709-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10007883. Licensed CC0.

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