This research sought to ascertain the relationship between hematocrit (HCT) and mortality in patients with sepsis.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of septic patients who were hospitalized between 2008 and 2019 in an advanced academic medical center in Boston, Massachusetts, registered in the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database, We analyzed basic information including gender, age, race, and types of the first admission, laboratory indicators including HCT, platelets, white blood cells, albumin, bilirubin, hemoglobin, and serum creatinine, and 30-day mortality. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was utilized to analyze the relationship between HCT and 30-day mortality in patients with sepsis.
Results: This research recruited 2057 patients who met the research requirements from 2008 to 2019. According to the HCT level, it was classified into the low HCT level, the regular HCT level, and the high HCT level. The 30-day mortality rate was 62.6%, 27.5%, and 9.9% for patients with the low HCT level, the regular HCT level, and the high HCT level, respectively (p < 0.05). The multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model analysis displayed that compared with patients with the regular HCT level, the 30-day mortality of patients with the low HCT level increased by 58.9% (hazard ratio = 1.589, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.009-2.979, p < 0.05).
Conclusion: The low HCT level is an independent risk factor for the increase of the 30-day mortality in patients with sepsis and can be used as a significant predictor of the clinical outcome of sepsis.