Several widely used scoring systems for septic patients have been validated in an ICU setting, and may not be appropriate for other settings like Emergency Departments (ED) or High-Dependency Units (HDU), where a relevant number of these patients are managed. The purpose of this study is to find reliable tools for prognostic assessment of septic patients managed in an ED-HDU. In 742 patients diagnosed with sepsis/severe sepsis/septic shock, not-intubated, admitted in ED between June 2008 and April 2016, SOFA, qSOFA, PIRO, MEWS, Charlson Comorbidity Index, MEDS, and APACHE II were calculated at ED admission (T0); SOFA and MEWS were also calculated after 24 h of ED-High-Dependency Unit stay (T1). Discrimination and incremental prognostic value of SOFA score over demographic data and parameters of sepsis severity were tested. Primary outcome is 28-day mortality. Twenty-eight day mortality rate is 31%. The different scores show a modest-to-moderate discrimination (T0 SOFA 0.695; T1 SOFA 0.741; qSOFA 0.625; T0 MEWS 0.662; T1 MEWS 0.729; PIRO: 0.646; APACHE II 0.756; Charlson Comorbidity Index 0.596; MEDS 0.674, all p < 0.001). At a multivariate stepwise Cox analysis, including age, Charlson Comorbidity Index, MEWS, and lactates, SOFA shows an incremental prognostic ability both at T0 (RR 1.165, IC 95% 1.009-1.224, p < 0.0001) and T1 (RR 1.168, IC 95% 1.104-1.234, p < 0.0001). SOFA score shows a moderate prognostic stratification ability, and demonstrates an incremental prognostic value over the previous medical conditions and clinical parameters in septic patients.
Keywords: Lactate; Organ dysfunction scores; Prognostic scores; Sepsis; Vital signs.