Effect of thiamine supplementation in critically ill patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Several studies have previously shown the benefit of thiamine supplementation in critically ill patients. In order to fully appraise the available data, we performed a meta-analysis of 18 published studies. METHODS: A thorough systematic search was conducted. The studies enrolling critically ill patients receiving thiamine supplementation was compared with the standard of care (SOC) group. Data was analyzed using RevMan 5.4. Clinical outcomes were pooled using Odds Ratio (OR) and mean differences. RESULT: Eighteen studies (8 RCTs and 10 cohort studies) met the criteria for quantitative synthesis. In the analysis of RCTs, thiamine supplementation showed 42% lower odds of developing ICU delirium (OR 0.58, 95% CI, 0.34-0.98). A reduction in mortaliy was observed on performing fixed effect model analysis however, a level of statistical significance could not be reached on performing random effect model analysis (OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.04). Further sub-group analysis of 13 studies in patients with sepsis, there was no difference in mortality between the two groups (OR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.63 to 1.09). CONCLUSION: Thiamine supplementation in critically ill patients showed a reduction in the incidence of ICU delirium among RCTs. However, there was no significant benefit in terms of overall mortality, and mortality in patients with sepsis. Further, large scale randomized prospective studies are warranted to investigate the role of thiamine supplementation in critically ill patients.

The Emerging Role of Vitamin C as a Treatment for Sepsis.

Sepsis, a life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection, is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Decades of research have failed to identify any specific therapeutic targets outside of antibiotics, infectious source elimination, and supportive care. More recently, vitamin C has emerged as a potential therapeutic agent to treat sepsis. Vitamin C has been shown to be deficient in septic patients and the administration of high dose intravenous as opposed to oral vitamin C leads to markedly improved and elevated serum levels. Its physiologic role in sepsis includes attenuating oxidative stress and inflammation, improving vasopressor synthesis, enhancing immune cell function, improving endovascular function, and epigenetic immunologic modifications. Multiple clinical trials have demonstrated the safety of vitamin C and two recent studies have shown promising data on mortality improvement. Currently, larger randomized controlled studies are underway to validate these findings. With further study, vitamin C may become standard of care for the treatment of sepsis, but given its safety profile, current treatment can be justified with compassionate use.