Anaemia to predict outcome in patients with acute coronary syndromes.

BACKGROUND: Owing to the heterogeneous population of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS), risk stratification with tools such as the GRACE risk score is recommended to guide therapeutic management and improve outcome. AIM: To evaluate whether anaemia refines the value of the GRACE risk model to predict midterm outcome after an ACS. METHODS: A prospective registry of 1064 ACS patients (63 ± 14 years; 73% men; 57% ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction [MI]) was studied. Anaemia was defined as haemoglobin less than 13 mg/dL in men or less than 12 mg/dL in women. The primary endpoint was 6-month death or rehospitalization for MI. RESULTS: The primary endpoint was reached in 132 patients, including 68 deaths. Anaemia was associated with adverse clinical outcomes (hazard ratio 3.008, 95% confidence interval 2.137-4.234; P<0.0001) in univariate analysis and remained independently associated with outcome after adjustment for the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) risk score (hazard ratio 2.870, 95% confidence interval 1.815-4.538; P<0.0001). Anaemia provided additional prognostic information to the GRACE score as demonstrated by a systematic improvement in global model fit and discrimination (c-statistic increasing from 0.633 [0.571;0.696] to 0.697 [0.638;0.755]). Subsequently, adding anaemia to the GRACE score led to reclassification of 595 patients into different risk categories; 16.5% patients at low risk (≤ 5% risk of death or rehospitalization for MI) were upgraded to intermediate (>5-10%) or high risk (>10%); 79.5% patients at intermediate risk were reclassified as low (55%) or high risk (24%); and 45.5% patients at high risk were downgraded to intermediate risk. Overall, 174 patients were reclassified into a higher risk category (17.3%) and 421 into a lower risk category (41.9%). CONCLUSION: Anaemia provides independent additional prognostic information to the GRACE score. Combining anaemia with the GRACE score refines its predictive value, which often overestimates the risk.

Extravascular lung water indexed or not to predicted body weight is a predictor of mortality in septic shock patients.

PURPOSE: The purpose was to investigate whether extravascular lung water (EVLW) indexed to actual body weight (EVLWa) is an independent predictor of mortality in patients with septic shock, to determine the relationship between EVLWa and other markers of lung injury, and to test if indexing EVLW with predicted body weight (EVLWp) strengthens its predictive power. METHODS: Extravascular lung water, pulmonary vascular permeability index, and other markers of lung injury were measured prospectively in 55 patients with septic shock for 3 days. RESULTS: At day 1, EVLWa, EVLWp, and pulmonary vascular permeability index were not significantly different between survivors and nonsurvivors. However, in parallel to the course of septic shock, these variables decreased only in the survivors and remained elevated in the nonsurvivors, reaching intergroup difference by day 3. In multiple logistic regression analysis, both EVLWa and EVLWp (at day 3) were predictors of mortality with an odds ratio of 2 (95% confidence interval, 1.12-3.7) and 1.7 (95% confidence interval, 1.1-2.5) per SD increase, respectively. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that EVLWp did not improve the discriminative power of EVLW to predict mortality. Extravascular lung water indexed to actual body weight correlated with lung injury score and with the ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to inspired oxygen fraction but not with static respiratory compliance. Indexing EVLW to predicted body weight did not ameliorate these correlations. CONCLUSIONS: Extravascular lung water indexed or not to predicted body weight is an independent predictor of mortality in patients with septic shock. Repeated measurements of EVLW indexes over time, rather than a too-early measurement, seem to be more appropriate for predicting outcome.