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Endocrine profiles for outcome prediction from the intensive care unit
M J Jarek1, E J Legare, M T McDermott
1Department of Medicine, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, Aurora, CO.
Objective:
To evaluate the discriminating ability of various specific endocrine studies on patient outcome from the intensive care unit (ICU).
Design:
Prospective cohort study of patients requiring intensive care.
Setting:
Adult medical and coronary care units in a military referral hospital.
Patients:
A total of 61 consecutive patients requiring intensive care over a 5-month period and 20 control subjects.
Interventions:
Patients were evaluated within 24 hrs of ICU admission (day 1) with determination of the following variables: serum triiodothyronine, thyroxine, triiodothyronine resin uptake, thyrotropin, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, testosterone, basal cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone-stimulated cortisol, cortisol increment, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE II) score. A total of 24 hrs later (day 2), the same battery of tests was repeated with the exception of the adrenocorticotropic hormone-stimulated cortisol, cortisol increment, and APACHE II score. Individual variables were compared between survivors and nonsurvivors.
Measurements And Main Results:
The best discriminators of patient outcome in descending order were the basal serum cortisol and triiodothyronine concentrations obtained on day 2 and the APACHE II score with predictive abilities of 81%, 74%, and 70%, respectively. No combination of variables was superior to the day 2 basal cortisol concentration for discrimination of outcome.
Conclusions:
The basal cortisol and triiodothyronine concentrations obtained from blood samples collected within 48 hrs of ICU admission appear to be better discriminators of patient outcome than the APACHE II score.