Acute and Critical Care最新文献

Background: Sepsis is a leading cause of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. However, few studies have evaluated how the ICU model affects the outcomes of patients with sepsis.

Methods: This post hoc analysis of data from the Management of Severe Sepsis in Asia's Intensive Care Units II study included 537 patients with sepsis admitted to 27 ICUs in Korea. The outcome measures of interest were compared between the closed ICU group, patients admitted under the full responsibility of an intensivist as the primary attending physician, and the open ICU group. The association between a closed ICU and ICU mortality was evaluated using a logistic regression analysis.

Results: Altogether, 363 and 174 enrolled patients were treated in open and closed ICUs, respectively. Compliance with the sepsis bundles did not differ between the two groups; however, the closed ICU group had a higher rate of renal replacement therapy and shorter duration of ventilator support. The closed ICU group also had a lower ICU mortality rate than the open ICU group (24.7% vs. 33.1%). In a logistic regression analysis, management in the closed ICU was significantly associated with a decreased ICU mortality rate even after adjusting for potential confounding factors (adjusted odds ratio, 0.576; 95% CI, 0.342-0.970), and that association was observed for up to 90 days.

Conclusions: Sepsis management in closed ICUs was significantly associated with improved ICU survival and decreased length of ICU stay, even though the compliance rates for the sepsis bundles did not differ between open and closed ICUs.

Background: The design of intensive care units (ICUs) is increasingly acknowledged as a crucial factor affecting patient outcomes. Transitioning from multi-bed patient rooms (MPRs) to single-bed patient rooms (SPRs) aims to improve infection control, patient privacy, and quality of care. However, concerns remain regarding potential patient isolation and reduced staff situational awareness. This study aims to evaluate clinical outcomes in SPR-structured ICUs compared to mixed SPR and MPR ICUs.

Methods: This multicenter retrospective cohort study was conducted across three university-affiliated tertiary hospitals between April 2022 and August 2023. The study population included ICU patients aged ≥18 years, excluding those admitted to cardiac and neonatal ICUs. Outcomes assessed included ICU mortality and severity scores based on Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II scores.

Results: This study included 3,179 ICU patients across three sites: Site A consisted exclusively of SPRs, while sites B and C had mixed SPR and MPR arrangements. ICU mortality rates were 8.3%, 15.2%, and 9.7% for sites A, B, and C, respectively (P<0.001). Propensity score matching and logistic regression analysis demonstrated that SPRs were associated with significantly reduced ICU mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.40-0.73).

Conclusions: SPRs were associated with a protective effect, reducing ICU mortality. Clinical outcomes in ICUs appear to be influenced by structural design improvements alongside other clinical factors.

Background: Scales that detect noninvasive ventilation (NIV) failure need to have adequate clinimetric properties to be reliable. This study aimed to compare the clinimetric properties of the Heart rate, Acidosis, Consciousness, Oxygenation, Respiratory rate (HACOR) and updated HACOR scales when applied to hypoxemic adult patients undergoing NIV.

Methods: This prospective study applied the HACOR and updated HACOR scales to hypoxemic patients after one hour of NIV in an emergency department setting. A second application of the scales was performed after ten minutes to assess reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient), measurement error (standard error of measurement and minimum detectable difference), ceiling and floor effects, convergent validity by correlation (Pearson's r) with peripheral oximetry saturation (SpO2), and predictive validity (area under the receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve) for the outcome of needing invasive mechanical ventilation.

Results: Sixty patients were included in this study (59.45±17.48 years; Simplified Acute Physiology Score III, 56.1±13.95; 30% with respiratory disease and 25% with cardiovascular disease). After 1 hour of NIV, patients had a HACOR score of 3 (interquartile range [IQR], 1.0-5.0) and an updated HACOR score of 5 (IQR, 3.0-8.87). Clinimetric properties were adequate for both versions of the HACOR scale but were superior for the updated version, including predictive validity (ROC [95% CI], 0.78 [0.64-0.91] vs. 0.73 [0.57-0.89]) and the absence of the ceiling effect.

Conclusions: Both versions of the HACOR scale demonstrated adequate clinimetric properties for predicting NIV failure, with the updated HACOR version showing superior predictive validity and no ceiling effect compared with the original version.

Background: Acute respiratory failure (ARF) is the leading cause of hospitalization and is associated with in-hospital mortality. This study aimed to elucidate the epidemiology and clinical outcomes of ARF.

Methods: We retrospectively screened patients admitted to three hospitals in South Korea between January 2018 and December 2022. We included individuals aged 18 years, diagnosed with either type 1 ARF (arterial oxygen partial pressure [PaO2] <60 mm Hg) or type 2 ARF (arterial carbon dioxide partial pressure (PaCO2) >45 mm Hg) with a pH of <7.35, or diagnosed with the combined-type ARF.

Results: Among the 768,700 hospitalized patients, 33,278 (4.3%) developed ARF. The most common cause of ARF was sepsis (15,757 patients, 47.3%), and the most frequent comorbidity was malignancy (15,403 patients, 43.6%). Among ARF patients, 15,671 (47.1%) required intensive care unit transfer, while 8,980 (27.0%) experienced in-hospital mortality. Over 5 years, the proportion of ARF patients aged 80 years and older has shown a consistent annual increase (coefficient, 0.085 and Ptrend <0.001). Concurrently, the in-hospital mortality rate exhibited an upward trend, increasing from 25.5% in 2018 to 29.3% in 2022 (coefficient, 1.017 and Ptrend<0.001). Among the respiratory support methods used for patients with ARF over the 5-year period, high-flow nasal cannula usage steadily increased (coefficient, 4.137 and Ptrend<0.001), whereas the use of invasive mechanical ventilation declined (coefficient, -0.983 and Ptrend<0.001).

Conclusions: ARF frequency and in-hospital mortality rates are increasing, driven by various etiologies. Despite these trends, research on the epidemiology and individualized treatments for older patients is limited, highlighting the need for nationwide prospective multicenter studies.

Background: Endovascular mechanical thrombectomy (EMT) can be performed with general anesthesia (GA) or using non-GA techniques. Several meta-analyses on the topic have reported discordant main outcomes. The aim of this retrospective single-center study was to analyze the relationship between clinical outcomes and anesthesiological management (GA vs. non-GA) in patients who underwent EMT for acute anterior ischemic stroke (AIS).

Methods: We performed a propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis of patients who underwent EMT for acute AIS from January 2018 to December 2021. For PSM, we chose covariates influencing clinical decisions about anesthesiological management. Comparisons between groups were performed with the chi-square test for categorical variables and Student t-test or the Mann-Whitney U-test for continuous variables as appropriate. The relationships between anesthesiological management and clinical outcomes were analyzed using logistic regression, and results are reported as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. A two-sided P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: From 194 observations (78 in the GA group, 116 in the non-GA group), after PSM, we obtained 70 data pairs. Both anesthesiological approaches resulted in similar rates of in-hospital mortality, 90-day functional independence, full recanalization, procedural complications, and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Performing EMT with GA was unrelated to the in-hospital and 90-day death rates, 90-day functional independence, full recanalization rate, procedural complications, and ICH (P>0.05).

Conclusions: Anesthesiological management did not influence clinical outcomes of EMT for acute AIS. Physiological stability during EMT may impact outcomes more significantly than anesthesiological management. Further studies on this topic are needed.

Background: Patients with septic shock frequently require tracheal intubation in the emergency department (ED). However, the criteria for tracheal intubation are subjective, based on physician experience, or require serial evaluations over relatively long intervals to make accurate predictions, which might not be feasible in the ED. We used supervised learning approaches and features routinely available during the initial stages of evaluation and resuscitation to stratify the risks of tracheal intubation within a 24-hour time window.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of patients diagnosed with septic shock based on the SEPSIS-3 criteria across 21 university hospital EDs in the Republic of Korea. A principal component analysis revealed a complex, non-linear decision boundary with respect to the application of tracheal intubation within a 24-hour time window. Stratified five-fold cross validation and a grid search were used with extreme gradient boost. Shapley values were calculated to explain feature importance and preferences.

Results: In total, data for 4,762 patients were analyzed; within that population, 1,486 (31%) were intubated within a 24-hour window, and 3,276 (69%) were not. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and F1 scores for intubation within a 24-hour window were 0.829 (95% CI, 0.801-0.878) and 0.654 (95% CI, 0.627-0.681), respectively. The Shapley values identified lactate level after initial fluids, suspected lung infection, initial pH, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score at enrollment, and respiratory rate at enrollment as important features for prediction.

Conclusions: An extreme gradient boosting machine can moderately discriminate whether intubation is warranted within 24 hours of the recognition of septic shock in the ED.

Background: Frailty is a widely accepted predictor of health outcomes in patients including the critically ill. Biological age is also increasingly recognized as a determinant of chronic health outcomes. Whether these factors are independently predictive of mortality among the critically ill is unknown. We assessed whether biological age, measured as PhenoAge at Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission, predicts mortality in critically ill patients independent of the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS).

Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort study included adult patients with available CFS and PhenoAge data at admission to ICU, excluding patients with incomplete records for key variables. The Levine PhenoAge model was used to estimate each patient's biological age (PhenoAge). PhenoAge was then calibrated to generate a regression residual to reflect excessive biological age unexplained by chronological age.

Results: Of the 1,073 critically ill adult patients analyzed, 117 died (10.9%) before hospital discharge. PhenoAge and CFS were significantly correlated (correlation coefficient, 0.235; P=0.001). PhenoAge (receiver operating characteristic curve [AUROC], 0.622) and its residuals (AUROC, 0.627) and CFS (AUROC, 0.601) were predictive of hospital mortality, with no significant differences in their ability to differentiate between survivors and non-survivors (paired comparison to CFS: P=0.586 and P=0.537, respectively). PhenoAge interacted with frailty in its effect on mortality (P=0.004) which was particularly prominent among those who were not clinically frail (CFS ≤3).

Conclusions: PhenoAge and CFS, both measured at ICU admission, independently predicted hospital mortality. PhenoAge showed a notable interaction with frailty, particularly in non-frail patients.

Background: Sepsis and septic shock are life-threatening global health challenges associated with high mortality rates. Early identification of high-risk patients is critical for improving outcomes. In the present study, the association between the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte-to-albumin ratio (NLAR) and mortality in septic patients was evaluated.

Methods: A retrospective study was performed at a tertiary hospital in Vietnam. Patients ≥18 years of age diagnosed with sepsis or septic shock based on the Sepsis-3 criteria were included. Exclusion criteria included recent corticosteroid use within 7 days, autoimmune diseases, hematological disorders, and active cancer within 5 years. NLAR was calculated from complete blood counts and albumin levels within the first 24 hours of intensive care unit admission. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine the predictive ability of NLAR for in-hospital mortality.

Results: The present study included 141 patients with a mean age of 72 years. Non-survivors were significantly older with higher rates of mechanical ventilation. NLAR was significantly elevated in non-survivors compared with survivors (0.88 [0.57-1.24] vs. 0.44 [0.28-0.77], P<0.001). In ROC analysis, the area under the curve for NLAR was 0.70 (P<0.001). Using a cutoff value of 0.56, NLAR showed a sensitivity of 77.8% and a specificity of 61.5% for predicting in-hospital mortality.

Conclusions: Elevated NLAR on admission was associated with a higher mortality rate in sepsis patients. NLAR could be used as an early prognostic marker for sepsis mortality.