Prognostic Nutritional Index and Urea-albumin Ratio: Novel Mortality Predictors for Critically Ill Sepsis Patients

Sepsis is a major health problem that causes the death of the majority of those affected. Early determination of mortality is essential to provide timely and adequate interventions. We investigated the efficacy of various prognostic indicators for the prediction of mortality in intensive care unit (ICU) sepsis patients.

Sepsis patients admitted to the ICU of our hospital between March 15, 2023 and January 01, 2024, were included in this study. These were divided into two groups: Survivors and nonsurvivors. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data of the groups were compared and their efficacy in predicting mortality was investigated.

Of the 115 patients in our study, 58 (50.4%) were in the nonsurvivor group and 57 (49.6%) were in the survivor group. Among the 16 different prognostic indicators investigated, the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) was found to have the highest diagnostic power (AUC = 0.704, 95% CI: 0.612-0.786; p < 0.0001) followed by the urea-albumin ratio (UAR) (AUC = 0.690, 95% CI: 0.597-0.773; p < 0.001). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) increased significantly in the model using PNI and UAR values together (AUC = 0.742, 95% CI: 0.653-0.819; p < 0.0001).

Our study showed that PNI and UAR indicators, when used together, may be a useful tool in the assessment of mortality risk in ICU sepsis patients.

Damarsoy T, Gozdas HT, Yildiz I, Demirhan A. Prognostic Nutritional Index and Urea-albumin Ratio: Novel Mortality Predictors for Critically Ill Sepsis Patients*. Indian J Crit Care Med 2025;29(12):996-1001.