[The correlation between gastric intramucosal pH and oxygen delivery in patients with septic shock]

We studied the correlation of intramucosal pH (pHi), oxygen delivery (DO2) and oxygen consumption (VO2) in 21 patients with septic shock, and found that pHi decreased dramatically (P < 0.05) in nonsurvivors while it had no significant change in survivors. In survivors, there was a positive correlation between pHi and DO2 (r = 0.71, P < 0.001), pHi and VO2 (r = 0.63, P < 0.001) when DO2 was below the critical level of 641 ml/min/m2. We concluded that the change of pHi is related with the prognosis of septic shock. The correlation between pHi and DO2 proves the oxygen supply dependency of VO2. The hypoxia in tissue level is the main factor which results in a high mortality of septic shock patients. pHi is a reliable and useful parameter not only for prognosis, but also for titrating the therapy in septic shock if pHi is monitored serially together with DO2.