Association of creatinine-albumin ratio with 28-day mortality in major burned patients: A retrospective cohort study

Abstract

Background: Serum creatinine (Cr) and Albumin (Alb) have emerged as prognostic factors for mortality in many diseases including burned patients. However, few studies report the relationship between Cr/Alb ratio and major burned patients. The purpose of this study is to make evaluation of efficacy of Cr/Alb ratio in predicting 28-day mortality in major burned patients.

Method: Based on a local largest tertiary hospital in South of China, we retrospectively analyzed data of 174 patients with total burn area surface (TBSA) ≥ 30% from January 2010 to December 2022. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), logistic analysis, and Kaplan-Meier analysis were performed to evaluate the association between Cr/Alb ratio and 28-day mortality. Integrated discrimination improvement (IDI), and net reclassification improvement (NRI) were used to estimate the improvements in new model performance.

Results: 28-day mortality rate was 13.2% (23/174) in burned patients. Cr/Alb on admission at level of 3.340μmol/g showed the best discrimination between survivors and non-survivors after admission at 28 days. The result of multivariate logistic analysis suggested that age (OR, 1.058 [95%CI 1.016-1.102]; p = 0.006), higher FTSA (OR, 1.036 [95%CI 1.010-1.062]; p = 0.006), and higher level of Cr/Alb ratio (OR, 6.923 [95CI% 1.743-27.498]; p = 0.006) were independently associated with 28 day-mortality. A regression model was constructed by logit(p) = 0.057 *Age + 0.035 *FTBA + 1.935 * Cr/Alb - 6.822. The model showed a better discrimination and risk reclassification compared with ABSI and rBaux score.

Conclusions: High Cr/Alb ratio at admission is a herald of poor outcome. The model generated from multivariate analysis could serve as an alternative prediction tool among major burned patients.

Keywords: Albumin; Burn; Creatinine; Mortality; Risk factor.