Differences in the prognosis among severe trauma and medical patients requiring mechanical ventilation

Objetive. To find the differences between the prognosis of the patients with severe traumatism injury and those who were admitted with medical pathology who also required mechanical ventilation in our ICU. Patients and Method. Retrospective descriptive study in a polyvalent ICU of a third level hospital for a period of 8 years. Epidemiological variables such as age, sex, average stay, mortality, APACHE II at admission and days of mechanical ventilation, were analyzed in patients with severe traumatism injury and patients with medical pathology that were admitted in ICU and received mechanical ventilation during this period. Results. During the study period were admitted 208 patients with severe traumatism injury and 732 medical patients, all of them required mechanical ventilation. Patients with severe traumatism injury are more younger (41.8 vs 55.3 years, p = 0.001) and entered ICU in a state of minor severity, according to the prognostic index APACHE II (14.8 vs 17.4, p < 0.001), despite which they required more days of mechanical ventilation (9.8 vs 7.8 days, p = 0.017) and had a higher average stay (11.4 vs 9.4 days, p = 0.027), although the mortality was significantly lower (38.2% vs 28.2%, p = 0.005). Multivariate analysis showed as independent variables associated with mortality, the APACHE II (p < 0.0001), the average stay in ICU (p < 0.0001), days of mechanical ventilation (p < 0.0001) and type patient (p = 0.016). Conclusions. Patients with severe traumatic injury that require mechanical ventilation despite to be admitted in ICU in a state of greater severity, having an increased ICU stay and more days of mechanical ventilation, have a better prognosis than medical patients that required also mechanical ventilation at ICU stay, likely to be younger.