Association of Thiamine Use with Outcomes in Patients with Sepsis and Alcohol Use Disorder: An Analysis of the...

The association between thiamine use and clinical outcomes among patients with sepsis and alcohol use disorder (AUD) is unclear.

In this retrospective cohort study of patients from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC-III, version 1.4), we evaluated the association of thiamine use with clinical outcomes in patients with AUD and sepsis. The primary outcome was 28-day survival, and secondary outcomes included ICU, in-hospital, and 90-day mortality, ICU and hospital length of stay, duration of vasopressor use, need and duration of continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), and dynamic changes for variables up to day 7 after ICU admission.

A total of 944 patients with sepsis and AUD were included in this cohort [median age, 53.1 years; women, 26.0% (245 of 944)]. Among all patients, 24.6% (233 of 944) received thiamine with a dose of 200 mg (IQR 100-345 mg). The 28-day mortality was 11.2% (26 of 233) in the thiamine use group compared with 18.6% (132 of 711) in the no thiamine use group (P = 0.009). After adjustment for a series of confounders, the mixed-effects Cox proportional hazards models showed that administration of thiamine was associated with a lower risk of 28-day mortality compared with no administration of thiamine.

In critically ill patients with alcohol use disorder admitted for sepsis, treatment with thiamine may be associated with a decreased risk of death. However, the present results should be interpreted with caution due to the limitations of retrospective design. Additional larger, multicenter randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm our findings.