Homeless in the emergency department.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J R Le Gall.
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OBJECTIVE: To develop customized versions of the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (SAPS II) and the 24-hour Mortality Probability Model II (MPM II) to estimate the probability of mortality for intensive care unit patients with early severe sepsis. DESIGN AND SETTING: Logistic regression models developed for patients with severe sepsis in a database of adult medical and surgical intensive care units in 12 countries. PATIENTS: Of 11,458 patients in the intensive care unit for at least 24 hours, 1130 had severe sepsis based on criteria of the American College of Chest Physicians and the Society of Critical Care Medicine (systemic inflammatory response syndrome in response to infection, plus hypotension, hypoperfusion, or multiple organ dysfunction). RESULTS: In patients with severe sepsis, mortality was higher (48.0% vs 19.6% among other patients) and 28-day survival was lower. The customized SAPS II was well calibrated (P = .92 for the goodness-of-fit test) and discriminated well (area under the receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve, 0.78). Performance in the validation sample was equally good (P = .85 for the goodness-of-fit test; area under the ROC curve, 0.79). The customized MPM II was well calibrated (P = .92 for the goodness-of-fit test) and discriminated well (area under the ROC curve, 0.79). Performance in the validation sample was equally good (P = .52 for the goodness-of-fit test; area under the ROC curve, 0.75). The models are independent of each other; either can be used alone to estimate the probability of mortality of patients with severe sepsis. CONCLUSIONS: Customization provides a simple technique to apply existing models to a subgroup of patients. Accurately assessing the probability of hospital mortality is a useful adjunct for clinical trials.
OBJECTIVE: To review recent revisions of systems for estimating the probability of hospital mortality of adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Emphasis on comparison of components of systems and potential uses. DATA SOURCES: Published articles in which the systems were presented. STUDY SELECTION: Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE III), Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS II), and Mortality Probability Models (MPM II) are the major severity systems for ICU patients. DATA EXTRACTION: Information on variables collected in the systems, characteristics of databases from which they were developed, and reported performance of models were evaluated from published articles. DATA SYNTHESIS: APACHE III and SAPS II produce a score and probability of hospital mortality based on worst values of several variables during the first 24 hours in ICU. The MPM II system has four models, one at ICU admission and one at 24, 48, and 72 hours into the ICU stay. The SAPS II and MPM II models can be implemented from published information. The APACHE III score can be calculated from published information; weights to convert score to probability are proprietary. All reported good areas under receiver operating characteristic curve. Goodness of fit was good for SAPS II and MPM II models and was not reported for APACHE III models. CONCLUSIONS: All models were based on rigorous research and reported performance is good. All can be used to assist in assessing prognosis, to compare ICU performance, and to stratify patients for clinical trials. Direct comparison on a common cohort is needed.
Two patients with eosinophilic endomyocardial disease related to peripheral T-cell lymphomas are reported. Both patients were free of cardiac symptoms at presentation and during follow-up. Routine two dimensional echocardiography revealed bi-apical ventricular obliteration, which was also seen on MR imaging. On the T1-weighted sequence, the thickened endocardium appeared with an isointense signal. Gadolinium DOTA provided an enhanced contrast of the internal part of the left ventricular wall. On T2-weighted sequence, a thin hypointense curvilinear structure drew a dividing line between the internal, endocardial, and the external, myocardial area. Left-ventricular systolic and diastolic functions remained unaltered during subsequent follow-up.
A thirty-eight-year-old man with primary thrombocythemia, von Recklinghausen neurofibromatosis, and myocardial-infarction-related left ventricular aneurysm with spontaneous echocardiographic contrast was followed up, suggesting that: 1. Neurofibromatosis may promote silent myocardial infarction or ischemia. Whether involvement of cardiac sensory nerves is a possible underlying mechanism remains nevertheless uncertain. 2. Platelets, whose role in the genesis of spontaneous echocardiographic contrast has been advocated, are probably not involved in this phenomenon, even in large numbers.
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The outcome of patients admitted to intensive care units is known to be influenced by such factors as age, previous health status, severity of disease, and diagnosis. To estimate the outcome of such patients with systemic rheumatic diseases and to determine if the severity of these diseases unfavourably influences the prognosis at the time of admission to a medical intensive care unit, the clinical courses of all patients with systemic rheumatic disease admitted to two medical intensive care units between January 1978 and December 1988 were studied retrospectively. Sixty nine patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (n = 16), necrotising vasculitis (n = 19), rheumatoid arthritis (n = 19), and other systemic rheumatic diseases (n = 15) were included. The mean (SD) age on admission into the medical intensive care unit was 53 (17) years and the mean simplified acute physiological score was 12 (5.5). The principal diagnoses on admission were infectious complications (29/69 patients) and acute exacerbation of the systemic rheumatic disease (19/69 patients). The death rate in the medical intensive care unit was 33% (23/69 patients) and was similar to that of a non-selected population with comparable simplified acute physiological score. The death rate in hospital was 42% (29/69 patients). Infection was the main cause of death in the medical intensive care unit (19/23 patients) and the infection was mainly acquired in the unit. Only the simplified acute physiological score on admission was a statistically significant prognostic factor: the simplified acute physiological score in patients who died was 15 (5.2) v 9.9 (4.7) for survivors. Long term outcome analysis showed that 83% (33/40 patients) of patients were still alive after admission to the medical intensive care unit with a follow up time between two months and nine years (mean 38 months). The death rate was relatively high and was mainly due to nosocomial infections. It was not different, however, from that of nonselected patients and the long term prognosis was highly favourable. This shows that the complications are often reversible, particularly infectious applications, and justifies admission to the medical intensive care unit of this group of patients.
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The outcome from intensive care is known to be influenced by such factors as age, previous health status, severity of the disease and diagnosis. In order to assess the influence of each individual factor, 3,687 patients from 38 French intensive care units were studied. For each patient were recorded: age, simplified acute physiological score (SAPS), previous health status, diagnosis, type of intensive care unit (medicine, scheduled or elective surgery) and immediate outcome. Each of these factors was found to influence the immediate survival rate. A multivariate analysis ranked the factors in the following order: SAPS, age, type of intensive care unit and previous health status. Diagnosis played a role in the prognosis since with a 10-15 points SAPS mortality was nil for drug overdose, 12 per cent for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 38 per cent for cardiogenic shock. However, a single diagnosis was made in only 37 per cent of the patients, as against 3 diagnoses in 17 per cent and 4 diagnoses or more in 7 per cent. When the type of intensive care unit was considered, the mean death rate was 20 per cent in medicine, 27 per cent in scheduled surgery and 5 per cent in elective surgery (P less than 0.001). Since this study showed a definite influence of each of the four factors on immediate survival, intensive care patients can be described and classified according to this system. However, it must be stressed that individual prognoses are extremely vague.
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The influence of patients' age on survival, level of therapy and length of stay was analyzed from data collected in 792 consecutive admissions to eight intensive care units. Mortality rate increased progressively with age; over 65 years of age, it was more than double that of patients under 45 years (36.8% versus 14.8%). However, mortality rate in patients over 75 years was equal to that observed in the 55 to 59 years group. There was a significant relationship between age and acute physiology score (APS) and the influence of age upon outcome decreased when APS increased. The number of TISS (therapeutic intervention scoring system) points delivered to patients increased slightly but significantly with age (r = 0.14). Standard care was responsible for the main part of this increase. Both in survivors and in non-survivors the length of stay was not different comparing the stay of the oldest patient with that of the younger age groups. We conclude that, in ICU patients, age is an important factor of prognosis but not as important as the severity of illness, and that there is no major difference in outcome of patients over 65 years of age compared to the entire study group of ICU patients.
We used 14 easily measured biologic and clinical variables to develop a simple scoring system reflecting the risk of death in ICU patients. The simplified acute physiology score (SAPS) was evaluated in 679 consecutive patients admitted to eight multidisciplinary referral ICUs in France. Surgery accounted for 40% of admissions. Data were collected during the first 24 h after ICU admission. SAPS correctly classified patients in groups of increasing probability of death, irrespective of diagnosis, and compared favorably with the acute physiology score (APS), a more complex scoring system which has also been applied to ICU patients. SAPS was a simpler and less time-consuming method for comparative studies and management evaluation between different ICUs.
We need objective and reliable ways of measuring the severity of disease of hospitalized patients. This paper demonstrates the international predictive accuracy of a severity of disease measure on 1504 consecutive, unscheduled intensive care admissions to 14 hospitals in the United States, France, Spain, and Finland. Using laboratory data gathered within 24 hours of ICU admission, the Acute Physiology Score of APACHE (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation) was a strong and stable predictor of hospital survival and concurrent therapeutic effort. In ordinary least squares and logistic multiple regression analysis, the impact of the Acute Physiology Score (APS) was highly significant (p less than 0.001) and of virtually identical magnitude in the United States and European hospitals. The use of this severity of disease measure should help researchers gain insights concerning the efficacy of medical services and the characteristics of physician decision making by permitting more precise prognostic stratification of severely ill patients.