Insulin-treated diabetes is not associated with increased mortality in critically ill patients.

INTRODUCTION: This was a planned substudy from the European observational Sepsis Occurrence in Acutely ill Patients (SOAP) study to investigate the possible impact of insulin-treated diabetes on morbidity and mortality in ICU patients.

METHODS: The SOAP study was a cohort, multicenter, observational study which included data from all adult patients admitted to one of 198 participating ICUs from 24 European countries during the study period. For this substudy, patients were classified according to whether or not they had a known diagnosis of insulin-treated diabetes mellitus. Outcome measures included the degree of organ dysfunction/failure as assessed by the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score, the occurrence of sepsis syndromes and organ failure in the ICU, hospital and ICU length of stay, and all cause hospital and ICU mortality.

RESULTS: Of the 3147 patients included in the SOAP study, 226 (7.2%) had previously diagnosed insulin-treated diabetes mellitus. On admission, patients with insulin-treated diabetes were older, sicker, as reflected by higher simplified acute physiology system II (SAPS II) and SOFA scores, and more likely to be receiving hemodialysis than the other patients. During the ICU stay, more patients with insulin-treated diabetes required renal replacement therapy (hemodialysis or hemofiltration) than other patients. There were no significant differences in ICU or hospital lengths of stay or in ICU or hospital mortality between patients with or without insulin-treated diabetes. Using a Cox proportional hazards regression analysis with hospital mortality censored at 28-days as the dependent factor, insulin-treated diabetes was not an independent predictor of mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: Even though patients with a history of insulin-treated diabetes are more severely ill and more likely to have renal failure, insulin-treated diabetes is not associated with increased mortality in ICU patients.