isrctn.org Identifier: ISRCTN04386758.

This first large-scale analysis of outcomes in acute neurological disease in the UK demonstrates real-life mortality higher than published series. NCCU care is associated with increased survival in conditions requiring highly specialised intensive care techniques, but high-quality step-down care is pivotal in others. Strategies that truly improve outcomes must integrate emergency department management, ICU admission criteria, NCCU treatment, high-quality step-down care and neurorehabilitation.

ObjectivesTo describe the patient demographics, outcomes and trends of admissions with acute severe asthma admitted to adult critical care units in England and Wales.Design10-year, retrospective analysis of a national audit database.SettingSecondary care: adult, general critical care units in the UK.Participants830 808 admissions to adult, general critical care units.Primary and secondary outcome measuresDemographic data including age and sex, whether the patient was invasively ventilated or not, length of stay (LOS; both in the critical care unit and acute hospital), survival (both critical care unit and acute hospital) and time trends across the 10-year period.ResultsOver the 10-year period, there were 11 948 (1.4% of total) admissions with asthma to adult critical care units in England and Wales. Among them 67.5% were female and 32.5% were male (RR F:M 2.1; 95% CI 2.0 to 2.1). Median LOS in the critical care unit was 1.8 days (IQR 0.9–3.8). Median LOS in the acute hospital was 7 days (IQR 4–14). Critical care unit survival rate was 95.5%. Survival at discharge from hospital was 93.3%. There was an increase in admissions to adult critical care units by an average of 4.7% (95% CI 2.8 to 6.7)/year.ConclusionsAcute asthma represents a modest burden of work for adult critical care units in England and Wales. Demographic patterns for admission to critical care unit mirror those of severe asthma in the general adult community. The number of critical care admissions with asthma are rising, although we were unable to discern whether this represents a true increase in the incidence of acute asthma or asthma severity.

This study validates risk prediction models for acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) in critical care units in the United Kingdom and recalibrates the models to this population. The Risk Adjustment In Neurocritical care (RAIN) Study was a prospective, observational cohort study in 67 adult critical care units. Adult patients admitted to critical care following acute TBI with a last pre-sedation Glasgow Coma Scale score of less than 15 were recruited. The primary outcomes were mortality and unfavorable outcome (death or severe disability, assessed using the Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale) at six months following TBI. Of 3626 critical care unit admissions, 2975 were analyzed. Following imputation of missing outcomes, mortality at six months was 25.7% and unfavorable outcome 57.4%. Ten risk prediction models were validated from Hukkelhoven and colleagues, the Medical Research Council (MRC) Corticosteroid Randomisation After Significant Head Injury (CRASH) Trial Collaborators, and the International Mission for Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials in TBI (IMPACT) group. The model with the best discrimination was the IMPACT ''Lab'' model (C index, 0.779 for mortality and 0.713 for unfavorable outcome). This model was well calibrated for mortality at six months but substantially under-predicted the risk of unfavorable outcome. Recalibration of the models resulted in small improvements in discrimination and excellent calibration for all models. The risk prediction models demonstrated sufficient statistical performance to support their use in research and audit but fell below the level required to guide individual patient decision-making. The published models for unfavorable outcome at six months had poor calibration in the UK critical care setting and the models recalibrated to this setting should be used in future research.

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