Analysis of the effects of early screening combined with blood lactate on the severity of patients with sepsis

This work aimed to investigate the adoption value of blood lactic acid (BLA) combined with the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) in the early screening of sepsis patients and assessing their severity. The data and materials utilized in this work were obtained from the electronic medical record system of 537 anonymized sepsis patients who received emergency rescue in the emergency rescue area of Liuzhou People's Hospital, Guangxi, from July 1, 2020, to December 26, 2020. Based on the 28-day outcomes of sepsis patients, the medical records were rolled into Group S (407 survival cases) and Group D (130 dead cases). Basic information such as the mode of hospital admission, initial management, use of emergency ventilator within 24 hours of admission, NEWS score, arterial oxygen pressure/alveolar oxygen pressure ratio (PaO2/PAO2), alveolar-arterial oxygen difference (A-aDO2), serum creatinine (SCr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), oxygenation index (OI), Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), D-dimer, use of vasoactive drugs within 24 hours of admission, C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), interleukin-6 (IL-6), N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) score, SOFA score, BLA level, NEWS with lactate (NEWS-L) score, SOFA score including lactate level (SOFA-L) score, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) length of stay, total hospital stay, ICU stay/total hospital stay, and septic shock condition were compared between groups. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the impact of various predictive factors on prognosis and to plot the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The results suggested marked differences between Group S and Group D in terms of mean age (t=-5.620; OR=-9.96, 95% CI: -13.44∼-6.47; P<0.001). Group S showed drastic differences in terms of mode of hospital admission (χ2=9.618, P<0.01), method of initial management (χ2=51.766, P<0.001), use of emergency ventilator within 24 hours of admission (χ2=98.564, P<0.001), incidence of septic shock (χ2=77.545, P<0.001), use of vasoactive drugs within 24 hours of admission (χ2=102.453, P<0.001), heart rate (t=-4.063, P<0.001), respiratory rate (t=-4.758, P<0.001), oxygenation status (χ2=20.547, P<0.001), NEWS score (t=-6.120, P<0.001), PaO2/PAO2 ratio (t=2.625, P<0.01), A-aDO2 value (Z=-3.581, P<0.001), OI value (Z=-3.106, P<0.01), PLT value (Z=-2.305, P<0.05), SCr value (Z=-3.510, P<0.001), BUN value (Z=-3.170, P<0.01), D-dimer (Z=-4.621, P<0.001), CRP level (Z=-4.057, P<0.001), PCT value (Z=-2.783, P<0.01), IL-6 level (Z=-2.904, P<0.001), length of hospital stay (Z=-4.138, P<0.001), total hospital stay (Z=-8.488, P<0.001), CCU/total hospital stay (Z=-9.118, P<0.001), NEWS score (t=-6.120, P<0.001), SOFA score (t=-6.961, P<0.001), SOFA-L score (Z=-4.609, P<0.001), NEWS-L score (Z=-5.845, P<0.001), BLA level (Z=-6.557, P<0.001), and GCS score (Z=6.909, P<0.001) when compared to Group D. The use of ventilators, septic shock, PCT, NEWS score, GCS score, SOFA score, SOFA-L score, NEWS-L score, and BLA level were identified as independent risk factors for predicting the prognosis of sepsis patients (P<0.001). The areas under ROC curve (AUC) of blood lactic acid, PCT, NEWS, NEWS-L, GCS, SOFA, and SOFA-L were 0.695, 0.665, 0.692, 0.698, 0.477, 0.700, and 0.653, respectively. These findings indicate that the combination of BLA with NEWS (NEWS-L) score and SOFA score has certain advantages in assessing the prognosis of sepsis.