Background
Increasing numbers of studies in chronic diseases have been published showing the relationship between body composition (BC) parameters (i.e. skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and adipose tissue (AT)) and outcomes. For patients admitted to intensive care unit (ICU), BC parameters have rarely been described as a prognostic marker of outcome. The primary objective was to evaluate the relationship between body composition at ICU admission and major clinical outcomes. Secondary objectives were to assess the relationship between BC parameters and other parameters (systemic inflammatory markers, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, albumin level) at ICU admission, and between BC alterations during ICU stay and outcomes.
Patients and methods
This retrospective study enrolled 25 adult patients who had two abdominal CT scans for clinical indication: first, within 48 hours of ICU admission (initial assessment), and second, 7 to 14 days later (late assessment). Skeletal Muscle radiodensity (SMD), cross-sectional area of SMM, Visceral Adipose Tissue (VAT) and Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue (SAT) were measured at the third lumbar vertebra. Cox regression analysis was used to determine the association between these parameters and mortality.
Results
Patients’ mean age was 64.6 years. Their mean BMI was 27.7 kg/m
2
(SD = 6.0). ICU mortality was 36%. There was no correlation between BC parameters at initial assessment and ICU outcomes. We observed a negative correlation between SMM index and SOFA score at initial assessment (r = -0.458, p = 0.037). There was a significant loss of VAT between two CT assessments which was associated with mortality (-22.34cm
2
/ m
2
in non-survivors versus -6.22 cm
2
/ m
2
in survivors, p = 0.039). Loss of SMD was greater with the occurrence of an infection than without (Delta SMD = -5.642 vs +1.957, p = 0.04).
Conclusions
Our results show alterations in body composition during ICU stay with a loss of muscle quality (decreased SMD) and adipose tissue. These findings require confirmation in future studies but already show that BC assessments at ICU admission and BC alterations during ICU stay are important factors for outcome in critically ill patients.
Background: Open surgical repair (OSR) for thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms (TAA) is associated with a high pulmonary and renal morbidity rate. Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) is a mechanism of protection against the deleterious effects of ischemia-reperfusion. To our knowledge IPC has never been tested during OSR for TAA. Methods: The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of IPC during OSR for TAA with respect to acute kidney injury (AKI) according to KDIGO and pneumonia/prolonged ventilation-time during the first 8 postoperative days. The secondary objectives are to compare both arms with respect to cardiac complications within 48 h, renal and pulmonary complications within 21 days and mortality at 60 days. To assess the efficacy of IPC with respect to pulmonary and renal morbidity, a cox model for competing risks will be used. Assuming that the event occurs among 36% of the patients when no IPC is performed, the allocation of 55 patients to each arm should allow detecting a hazard ratio of at least 2.75 with a power of 80% when admitting 5% for an error of first kind. This means that 110 patients, enrolled in this multicenter study, may be randomised within 36 months of the first randomization. Randomization will be performed to allocate patients either to surgery with preconditioning before aortic cross clamping (Arm 1) or to surgery without preconditioning before aortic cross clamping (Arm 2). Randomization takes place during the intervention after intravenous injection of heparin, or after the start of femoral assistance. The procedure for IPC will be a supra-visceral thoracic aortic cross clamping for 5 min followed by an unclamping period of 5 min. This procedure will be repeated twice before starting thoracic aortic cross
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