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. 2019 Apr 30;27(1):51.
doi: 10.1186/s13049-019-0609-3.

Prognostic accuracy of the serum lactate level, the SOFA score and the qSOFA score for mortality among adults with Sepsis

Zhiqiang Liu  1 , Zibo Meng  1 , Yongfeng Li  2 , Jingyuan Zhao  1 , Shihong Wu  1 , Shanmiao Gou  3 , Heshui Wu  4
Affiliations

Prognostic accuracy of the serum lactate level, the SOFA score and the qSOFA score for mortality among adults with Sepsis

Zhiqiang Liu et al. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. .

Abstract

Background: Sepsis is a common critical condition caused by the body's overwhelming response to certain infective agents. Many biomarkers, including the serum lactate level, have been used for sepsis diagnosis and guiding treatment. Recently, the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3) recommended the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and the quick SOFA (qSOFA) rather than lactate for screening sepsis and assess prognosis. Here, we aim to explore and compare the prognostic accuracy of the lactate level, the SOFA score and the qSOFA score for mortality in septic patients using the public Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III database (MIMIC III).

Methods: The baseline characteristics, laboratory test results and outcomes for sepsis patients were retrieved from MIMIC III. Survival was analysed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analysis was performed to identify predictors of prognosis. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was conducted to compare lactate with SOFA and qSOFA scores.

Results: A total of 3713 cases were initially identified. The analysis cohort included 1865 patients. The 24-h average lactate levels and the worst scores during the first 24 h of ICU admission were collected. Patients in the higher lactate group had higher mortality than those in the lower lactate group. Lactate was an independent predictor of sepsis prognosis. The AUROC of lactate (AUROC, 0.664 [95% CI, 0.639-0.689]) was significantly higher than that of qSOFA (AUROC, 0.547 [95% CI, 0.521-0.574]), and it was similar to the AUROC of SOFA (AUROC, 0.686 [95% CI, 0.661-0.710]). But the timing of lactate relative to SOFA and qSOFA scores was inconsistent.

Conclusion: Lactate is an independent prognostic predictor of mortality for patients with sepsis. It has superior discriminative power to qSOFA, and shows discriminative ability similar to that of SOFA.

Keywords: Lactate; MIMIC III; Prognosis; SOFA; Sepsis; qSOFA.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical consent was not required in this study, since the MIMIC III data were analyzed namelessly.

Consent for publication

The manuscript does not include individual person’s data.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The detailed process of data extraction
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Probability of mortality curve for the patient with sepsis by lactate levels. a. 30-day mortality; b. 90-day mortality; c. hospital mortality; d. 1-year mortality. P values were calculated using log Rank-Mantel. P< 0.05 means statistically significant
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The association between lactate and SOFA score (r = 0.43, P = 0). Pearson analysis was performed
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Receiver operating characteristic curves of lactate for predicting mortality. a. 30-day mortality; b. 90-day mortality; c. hospital mortality; d. 1-year mortality
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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