Variation of the SOFA score and mortality in patients with severe burns: A cohort study.

Multiple organ failure (MOF) is the leading cause of death in patients with burns requiring ICU admission. Quantifying the evolution of MOF, with the SOFA score, over the first few days after a severe burn may provide useful prognostic information. This retrospective cohort study aimed at evaluating the association between the evolution of the SOFA score between day 0 and day 3 and in-hospital mortality. All patients admitted for severe burns at the burn ICU of the Tours University Hospital between 2017 and 2020 and who stayed 3 days or more were included. Severe burns included: total body surface area burned (TBSA) ≥ 20 % or burns of any surface associated with one or more of the following items: (1) organ failure, (2) clinically significant smoke inhalation and/or cyanide poisoning, (3) severe preexisting comorbidities, (4) complex and specialized burn wound care. DeltaSOFA was defined as day 3 minus day 0 SOFA. One hundred and thirty-six patients were included. Median age was 52 years (38-70), median TBSA burned was 24 % (20-38), median day 0 SOFA was 2 (0-4) and median day 3 SOFA was 1 (0-5). In-hospital mortality was 10 %. There was a significant association between deltaSOFA and mortality that persisted after adjustment for age and TBSA (HR 1.37, 95 %CI 1.09-1.72, p < 0.01). Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the prediction of mortality by day 0 SOFA and deltaSOFA were 0.79 (95 %CI 0.69-0.89) and 0.83 (95 %CI 0.70-0.95) respectively. After exclusion of patients with TBSA burned< 15 %, deltaSOFA remained independently associated with mortality (HR 1.42 95 %CI 1.09-1.85, p < 0.01). In addition, SOFA variations allowed the identification of subgroups of patients with either very low or very high mortality. In patients with severe burns, SOFA score evolution between day 0 and day 3 may be useful for individualized medical and ethical decisions. Further multicenter studies are required to corroborate the present results.

Implementation of French Recommendations for the Prevention and the Treatment of Hospital-acquired Pneumonia: A Cluster-randomized Trial.

BACKGROUND: We determined whether an audit on the adherence to guidelines for hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) can improve the outcomes of patients in intensive care units (ICUs). METHODS: This study was conducted at 35 ICUs in 30 hospitals. We included consecutive, adult patients hospitalized in ICUs for 3 days or more. After a 3-month baseline period followed by the dissemination of recommendations, an audit on the compliance to recommendations (audit period) was followed by a 3-month cluster-randomized trial. We randomly assigned ICUs to either receive audit and feedback (intervention group) or participate in a national registry (control group). The primary outcome was the duration of ICU stay. RESULTS: Among 1856 patients enrolled, 602, 669, and 585 were recruited in the baseline, audit, and intervention periods, respectively. The composite measures of compliance were 47% (interquartile range [IQR], 38-56%) in the intervention group and 42% (IQR, 25-53%) in the control group (P = .001). As compared to the baseline period, the ICU lengths of stay were reduced by 3.2 days in the intervention period (P = .07) and by 2.8 days in the control period (P = .02). The durations of ICU stay were 7 days (IQR, 5-14 days) in the control group and 9 days (IQR, 5-20 days) in the intervention group (P = .10). After adjustment for unbalanced baseline characteristics, the hazard ratio for being discharged alive from the ICU in the control group was 1.17 (95% confidence interval, .69-2.01; P = .10). CONCLUSIONS: The publication of French guidelines for HAP was associated with a reduction of the ICU length of stay. However, the realization of an audit to improve their application did not further improve outcomes. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT03348579.

Specific Metabolome Profile of Exhaled Breath Condensate in Patients with Shock and Respiratory Failure: A Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Shock includes different pathophysiological mechanisms not fully understood and remains a challenge to manage. Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) may contain relevant biomarkers that could help us make an early diagnosis or better understand the metabolic perturbations resulting from this pathological situation. OBJECTIVE: we aimed to establish the metabolomics signature of EBC from patients in shock with acute respiratory failure in a pilot study. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We explored the metabolic signature of EBC in 12 patients with shock compared to 14 controls using LC-HRMS. We used a non-targeted approach, and we performed a multivariate analysis based on Orthogonal Partial Least Square-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) to differentiate between the two groups of patients. RESULTS: We optimized the procedure of EBC collection and LC-HRMS detected more than 1000 ions in this fluid. The optimization of multivariate models led to an excellent model of differentiation for both groups (Q2 > 0.4) after inclusion of only 6 ions. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: We validated the procedure of EBC collection and we showed that the metabolome profile of EBC may be relevant in characterizing patients with shock. We performed well in distinguishing these patients from controls, and the identification of relevant compounds may be promising for ICC patients.