This prospective study found the incidence of ICU-treated severe sepsis in Finland to be 0.38 per 1,000 of the population. The ICU and hospital mortalities were also lower than earlier reported in United States or Australia. Evidence-based sepsis therapies were not used as often as recommended.

BACKGROUND:Increased concentrations of cell-free DNA have been found in plasma of septic and critically ill patients. We investigated the value of plasma DNA for the prediction of intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital mortality and its association with the degree of organ dysfunction and disease severity in patients with severe sepsis.

PurposeWe aimed to determine the feasibility of targeting low-normal or high-normal mean arterial pressure (MAP) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and its effect on markers of neurological injury. MethodsIn the Carbon dioxide, Oxygen and Mean arterial pressure After Cardiac Arrest and REsuscitation (COMACARE) trial, we used a 23 factorial design to randomly assign patients after OHCA and resuscitation to low-normal or high-normal levels of arterial carbon dioxide tension, to normoxia or moderate hyperoxia, and to low-normal or high-normal MAP. In this paper we report the results of the low-normal (65–75 mmHg) vs. high-normal (80–100 mmHg) MAP comparison. The primary outcome was the serum concentration of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) at 48 h after cardiac arrest. The feasibility outcome was the difference in MAP between the groups. Secondary outcomes included S100B protein and cardiac troponin (TnT) concentrations, electroencephalography (EEG) findings, cerebral oxygenation and neurological outcome at 6 months after cardiac arrest.ResultsWe recruited 123 patients and included 120 in the final analysis. We found a clear separation in MAP between the groups (p < 0.001). The median (interquartile range) NSE concentration at 48 h was 20.6 µg/L (15.2–34.9 µg/L) in the low-normal MAP group and 22.0 µg/L (13.6–30.9 µg/L) in the high-normal MAP group, p = 0.522. We found no differences in the secondary outcomes.ConclusionsTargeting a specific range of MAP was feasible during post-resuscitation intensive care. However, the blood pressure level did not affect the NSE concentration at 48 h after cardiac arrest, nor any secondary outcomes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00134-018-5446-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

High age alone is not a valid reason to refuse intensive care, but the benefits perceived by intensive care seem to decrease with aging, if reflected as QALYs. However, 97% of the elderly survivors lived at home and 88% of them considered their QOL satisfactory or good after hospital discharge. Therefore, more reliable information on the outcome for the elderly is clearly needed.