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OBJECTIVES: Poor glycemic control is associated with mortality in critical patients with diabetes. The aim of the study was to assess the predicting value of stress hyperglycemia in patients with diabetes following hospital admission for sepsis. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. SETTING: Adult, emergency department, and critical care in a district hospital. PATIENTS: In a 10-year retrospective analysis of sepsis-related hospitalizations in the emergency department, we carried out a secondary analysis of 915 patients with diabetes (males, 54.0%) in whom both fasting glucose at entry and glycosylated hemoglobin were available. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Patients' mean age was 79.0 (sd 11.0), glucose at admission was 174.0 mg/dL (74.3 mg/dL), and glycosylated hemoglobin was 7.7% (1.7%). Stress hyperglycemia was defined by the stress hyperglycemia ratio, that is, fasting glucose concentration at admission divided by the estimated average glucose derived from glycosylated hemoglobin. A total of 305 patients died (33.3%) in hospital. Factors associated with in-hospital case fatality rate were tested by multivariable logistic model. Ten variables predicting outcomes in the general population were confirmed in the presence of diabetes (male sex, older age, number of organ dysfunction diagnoses, in particular cardiovascular dysfunction, infection/parasitic, circulatory, respiratory, digestive diseases diagnosis, and Charlson Comorbidity Index). In addition, also glycemic control (glycosylated hemoglobin: odds ratio, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.15-1.40) and stress hyperglycemia (stress hyperglycemia ratio: 5.25; 3.62-7.63) were significant case fatality rate predictors. High stress hyperglycemia ratio (≥ 1.14) significantly increased the discriminant capacity (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.864; se, 0.013; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Stress hyperglycemia, even in the presence of diabetes, is predictive of mortality following admission for sepsis. Stress hyperglycemia ratio may be used to refine prediction of an unfavorable outcome.
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BACKGROUND: The burden of sepsis represents a global health care problem. We aimed to assess the case fatality rate (CFR) and its predictors in subjects with sepsis admitted to a general Italian hospital from 2009 to 2016, stratified by risk score. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of all sepsis-related hospitalizations after Emergency Department (ED) visit in a public Italian hospital in an 8-year period. A risk score to predict CFR was computed by logistic regression analysis of selected variables in a training set (2009-2012), and then confirmed in the whole study population. A trend analysis of CFR during the study period was performed dividing patient as high-risk (upper tertile of risk score) or low-risk. RESULTS: Two thousand four hundred ninety-two subjects were included. Over time the incidental admission rate (no. of sepsis-related admissions per 100 total admissions) increased from 4.1% (2009-2010) to 5.4% (2015-2016); P < 0.001, accompanied by a reduced CFR (from 38.0 to 18.4%; P < 0.001). A group of 10 variables (admission to intensive care unit, cardio-vascular dysfunction, HIV infection, diabetes, age ≥ 80 years, respiratory diseases, number of organ dysfunction, digestive diseases, dementia and cancer) were selected by the logistic model to predict CFR with good accuracy: AUC 0.873 [0.009]. Along the years CFR decreased from 31.8% (2009-2010) to 25.0% (2015-2016); P = 0.007. The relative proportion of subjects ≥80 years (overall, 52.9% of cases) and classified as high-risk did not change along the years. CFR decreased only in low-risk subjects (from 13.3 to 5.2%; P < 0.001), and particularly in those aged ≥80 (from 18.2 to 6.6%; P = 0.003), but not in high-risk individuals (from 69.9 to 64.2%; P = 0.713). CONCLUSION: Between 2009 and 2016 the incidence of sepsis-related hospitalization increased in a general Italian hospital, with a downward trend in CFR, only limited to low-risk patients and particularly to subjects ≥80 years.
