Serum Lactate Level as Predictor of Outcome in Sepsis Patients in Intensive Care Unit

Background- Sepsis is a common critical condition caused by the body's overwhelming response to certain infective agents. Many biomarkers, including the serum lactate level, have been used for sepsis diagnosis and guiding treatment. Recently, the Third International Consensus Denitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3) recommended the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and the quick SOFA (qSOFA) rather than lactate for screening sepsis and assess prognosis. This study explores correlation between blood lactate levels in patients with sepsis admitted into the intensive care unit and their hospital outcomes. Materials and MethodsThis was an observational study conducted in the Department of Medicine, in a tertiary care hospital of India conducted for a period of 2 years. Sepsis Patients admitted into Intensive Care Unit (ICU ) above 18 years of age were included in the study. Information was collected through a pre-tested and structured proforma for each patient. Serum Lactate levels at admission, 6 hours after admission and 24 hourly for the next 3 days was recorded to observe for lactate clearance from the body. The role of lactate monitoring helped in determining prognostic potential and focus on early stage of sepsis management. Lactate clearance and organ dysfunction was assessed and outcome was quantied using SOFA scoring. Results- Being a quantitative data, normality of data was tested using Shapiro-wilk test .Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare between patients with different outcome. Serum lactate levels (at 6 hours) was higher inpatients who couldn't survive (10.33) as compared to group of patients who survived (4.82) and the difference between the two was statistically signicant (p = 0.001). The predictive usefulness Conclusionof serial serum lactate monitoring for morbidity and mortality is conrmed by this study. However, it would be prudent to note that recovering from such an insult takes a lot of time. Even if a critical patient has survived the current crisis, lactate readings should likely be monitored for longer periods of time.