High mortaility in bacteraemia and candidaemia in critically ill patients - report from Swedish Intensive Care Registry

• Objective: Increasing prevalence of  bacteremia and candidemia with significant resistance to antimicrobial agents is an increasing concern among ICU patients. The objective of this report from Swedish Registry of Intensive care (SIR) was to study the frequency and cause of culture verified sepsis in critically ill patients and to analyse mortality in sepsis caused by Candida albicans, Candida non albicans and bacteria.Methods: Setting: Starting 10 years ago an increasing number of ICU:s in Sweden reports each episode of care (EOC) to the Swedish Intensive care Registry (SIR).  Mortality is followed weekly for all patients by link to the Swedish population registry. A specific routine for collection of microbial data directly from the laboratories connected individually to each EOC has been tested and implemented for laboratories covering 1/3 of the Swedish population. Participants: 47 ICU:s reported 1540 EOC:s during the period January 2005 to November 2011, with a diagnosis of sepsis (ICD10: A419, R572 or R651) and a positive blood culture within 14 days before admission until discharge.  For patients with more than one EOC was only the last EOC included which reduced the number of observations included in mortality calculations to 1416.Variables: Primary outcome was 30 day mortality calculated from admission to ICU.Results: 1 416 patients met inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. The most common causes of sepsis were:  E. coli (24 %) followed by Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CoNS) (21 %), Streptococcus spp (19 %), S. aureus (14 %), Klebsiella spp (8 %) and Candida spp (6 %) [Candida albicans 4 % and Candida non albicans 2 %]. The 30-days crude mortality was 34% for patients with sepsis caused by S. aureus. Correspondingly 30 days mortality was for  Candida non albicans 34%, Candida albicans 31%,  Klebsiella spp 26 % , CoNS 25 %, E. coli 22 %. Distribution of species in blood cultures from the 87 patients with candidemia were: C. albicans 62, C. glabrata 11, C. krusei 1, C. tropicalis 4, C. other 4, C. non specified 9.Conclusion: The highest (>30%) crude mortality in critically ill patients with sepsis was seen in patients with S. aureus and Candida infections. Further analysis of independent risk factors for mortality in sepsis caused by different pathogens are warranted.

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