Even when patients survive an episode of sepsis, it's not uncommon for them to die in the months or years afterward. The trend prompted researchers from the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor to investigate to long-term risks of sepsis.
Because patient with more medical problems are more likely to develop sepsis than relatively healthy patients, clinicians don't know if sepsis increases the risk of late death — defined as a death that occurs months to years after the acute episode has cleared up— or if patients are dying of pre-existing conditions.
To answer the question, Hallie Prescott, MD, and a team of researchers analyzed the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study, which includes national data from more than 30,000 older Americans.
Of the patients who survived for 30 days after their sepsis hospitalization, 40 percent died within the next two years, according to the study. Additionally, Dr. Prescott noted the high rate of late mortality was not attributable to the patient's age, socio-demographics or pre-sepsis health status.
"Rather, we found that, compared to the group of adults not in the hospital, one in five patients who survived sepsis had a late death that was not explained by their baseline characteristics," said Dr. Prescott. "Compared to the patients admitted to the hospital with a non-sepsis infection or sterile inflammatory condition, patients with sepsis had a 10 percent and 16 percent absolute increase in late death, respectively."
The good news of the study findings is that post-sepsis late deaths may be prevented through interventions, according to the study authors.
The complete study was published in The BMJ.
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5 steps Huntsville Hospital took to combat sepsis mortality