Plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin and adverse outcome in critically ill patients with ventilatory support.

OBJECTIVE: Plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (pNGAL) has been introduced as an early and sensitive biomarker of acute kidney injury (AKI), with an increased risk for renal replacement therapy (RRT) and adverse outcome in selected critically ill patient groups. Acute respiratory failure is the most common organ dysfunction in critically ill patients with an increased risk for AKI. Accordingly, we hypothesized that pNGAL would independently predict adverse outcome in a heterogeneous group of critically ill adult patients with acute respiratory failure. DESIGN AND SETTING: Prospective, multi-centre study in 25 Finnish intensive care units. PATIENTS AND METHODS: pNGAL was measured from critically ill patients with acute respiratory failure. We evaluated the predictive value of pNGAL for RRT, and hospital and 90-day mortality first separately, second in addition to the Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS II), and third to RIFLE (Risk, Injury, Failure, Loss, End-Stage Renal Disease) AKI classification. Additionally, we assessed the factors associated with pNGAL by linear regression analysis. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We included 369 patients. Median (interquartile range) baseline pNGAL was 169 (92-370) ng/ml. The areas under receiver operating characteristic curves of baseline pNGAL were as follows: 0.733 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.656-0.810] for RRT, 0.627 (95% CI 0.561-0.693) for hospital, and 0.582 (95% CI 0.520-0.645) for 90-day mortality. Present infection, baseline creatinine, operative status, and pancreatitis were independently associated with baseline pNGAL. CONCLUSIONS: Baseline pNGAL gives no additional value into prediction of hospital and 90-day mortality compared with RIFLE or SAPS II, and has only moderate predictive power regarding RRT in critically ill adult patients with acute respiratory failure.

Acute kidney injury in patients with severe sepsis in Finnish Intensive Care Units.

BACKGROUND: Severe sepsis is one of the leading causes of acute kidney injury (AKI). Patients with sepsis-associated AKI demonstrate high-hospital mortality. We evaluated the incidence of severe sepsis-associated AKI and its association with outcome in intensive care units (ICUs) in Finland. METHODS: This was a predetermined sub-study of the prospective, observational, multicentre FINNAKI study conducted in 17 ICUs during 1 September 2011 and 1 February 2012. All emergency ICU admissions and elective admissions exceeding 24 hours in the ICU were screened for presence of severe sepsis and AKI up to 5 days in ICU. AKI was defined according to the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria and severe sepsis according to the American College of Chest Physicians/Society of Critical Care Medicine (ACCP/SCCM) criteria. RESULTS: Of the 2901 included patients, severe sepsis was diagnosed in 918 (31.6%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 29.9-33.4%) patients. Of these 918 patients, 488 (53.2% [95% CI 49.9-56.5%]) had AKI. The 90-day mortality rate was 38.1% (95% CI 33.7-42.5%) for severe sepsis patients with AKI and 24.7% (95% CI 20.5-28.8%) for those without AKI. After adjusting for covariates, KDIGO stage 3 AKI was associated with an increased risk for 90-day mortality with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 1.94 (95% CI 1.28-2.94), but stages 1 and 2 were not. CONCLUSIONS: More than half of the patients with severe sepsis had AKI according to the KDIGO classification, and AKI stage 3 was independently associated with 90-day mortality.

Serum and cerebrospinal fluid prolactin patterns during neuroleptic treatment in schizophrenic patients.

Serum and CSF prolactin (PRL) concentrations were determined during eight weeks of fluphenazine medication in 28 patients with acute symptoms of schizophrenia. In both sexes a good correlation between the serum and CSF PRL values was found (r = 0.57, p less than 0.01). Throughout the entire study, first admission (FA) patients had significantly higher levels of serum and CSF PRL than the re-entry (RE) schizophrenics (0.05 greater than p less than 0.001). In addition, in FA patients, a gradual increase of the serum and CSF PRL concentrations was observed, whereas in the RE group an adaptive secretion pattern of PRL could be detected. In both patient groups, female patients exhibited significantly higher PRL serum and CSF levels than the male patients (0.05 greater than p less than 0.001). The tolerance phenomenon in the RE groups was more marked in the female than in the male patients. No correlation between clinical outcome and PRL response to fluphenazine treatment was observed. The prognostic significance of the differences in the PRL secretion pattern is discussed.