Variability of blood glucose concentration and short-term mortality in critically ill patients.
BACKGROUND
Intensive insulin therapy may reduce mortality and morbidity in selected surgical patients. Intensive insulin therapy also reduced the SD of blood glucose concentration, an accepted measure of variability. There is no information on the possible significance of variability in glucose concentration.


METHODS
The methods included extraction of blood glucose values from electronically stored biochemical databases and of data on patient's characteristics, clinical features, and outcome from electronically stored prospectively collected patient databases; calculation of SD of glucose as a marker of variability and of several indices of glucose control in each patient; and statistical assessment of the relation between these variables and intensive care unit mortality.


RESULTS
There were 168,337 blood glucose measurements in the study cohort of 7,049 critically ill patients (4.2 hourly measurements on average). The mean +/- SD of blood glucose concentration was 1.7 +/- 1.3 mM in survivors and 2.3 +/- 1.6 mM in nonsurvivors (P < 0.001). Using multiple variable logistic regression analysis, both mean and SD of blood glucose were significantly associated with intensive care unit mortality (P < 0.001; odds ratios [per 1 mM] 1.23 and 1.27, respectively) and hospital mortality (P < 0.001 and P = 0.013; odds ratios [per 1 mM] 1.21 and 1.18, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
The SD of glucose concentration is a significant independent predictor of intensive care unit and hospital mortality. Decreasing the variability of blood glucose concentration might be an important aspect of glucose management.
Egi
Moritoki
M
Department of Intensive Care, Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.
Bellomo
Rinaldo
R
Stachowski
Edward
E
French
Craig J
CJ
Hart
Graeme
G
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D003422:Critical Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000401:mortality*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007328:Insulin / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012372:ROC Curve; D016019:Survival Analysis
D001786:Blood Glucose; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents; D007328:Insulin