Clinical cornerstone
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Clinical cornerstone · Jan 2003
Review Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialInsulin therapy for the critically ill patient.
The risk of mortality or significant morbidity is high among critically ill patients who are treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) for > 5 days. These patients are susceptible to sepsis, excessive inflammation, critical illness polyneuropathy, and multiple organ failure, the latter often being the cause of death. Most intensive care patients, even those who did not previously suffer from diabetes, are hyperglycemic, which is presumed to reflect an adaptive development of insulin resistance. ⋯ Logistic regression analysis indicated that control of BG levels, rather than insulin administration itself, likely explains the observed clinical benefits. Use of insulin infusion to maintain normoglycemia using a titration algorithm, at least in populations similar to those in the Leuven study, improves outcome. Further data are needed to establish the applicability of this strategy to other patient groups, such as those in a medical ICU and in general hospital care.