Epidemiology and Outcomes of Cancer-Related Versus Non–Cancer-Related Sepsis Hospitalizations*

Objective: Cancer and its treatment are known to be important risk factors for sepsis, contributing to an estimated 12% of U.S. sepsis admissions in the 1990s. However, cancer treatment has evolved markedly over the past 2 decades. We sought to examine how cancer-related sepsis differs from non–cancer-related sepsis. Design: Observational cohort. Setting: National Readmissions Database (2013–2014), containing all-payer claims for 49% of U.S. population. Patients: A total of 1,104,363 sepsis hospitalizations. Interventions: We identified sepsis hospitalizations in the U.S. National Readmissions Database using explicit codes for severe sepsis, septic shock, or Dombrovskiy criteria (concomitant codes for infection and organ dysfunction). We classified hospitalizations as cancer-related versus non–cancer-related sepsis based on the presence of secondary diagnosis codes for malignancy. We compared characteristics (site of infection and organ dysfunction) and outcomes (in-hospital mortality and 30-d readmissions) of cancer-related versus non–cancer-related sepsis hospitalizations. We also completed subgroup analyses by age, cancer types, and specific cancer diagnoses. Measurements and Main Results: There were 27,481,517 hospitalizations in National Readmissions Database 2013–2014, of which 1,104,363 (4.0%) were for sepsis and 4,150,998 (15.1%) were cancer related. In-hospital mortality in cancer-related sepsis was 27.9% versus 19.5% in non–cancer-relate...
Source: Critical Care Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Feature Articles Source Type: research