Lactate/Sepsis

OBJECTIVE: We evaluate the capacity of arterial (ABL), peripheral venous (VBL), and capillary (CBL) blood lactate concentration to early detect the presence of severe sepsis in patients admitted to the emergency department for a septic syndrome. METHODS: Patients with signs of sepsis presenting to the emergency department were prospectively enrolled. Blood lactate was measured using a handheld point-of-care analyzer on microsamples of arterial, peripheral venous, and capillary blood...

Lactate measurements are routinely used in sepsis for prognostication and for guiding treatment. Although venous lactate measurements have widely been used, most studies have used arterial lactate (A-LACT). The interchangeability between the measurements is debatable. This pilot study aimed to investigate whether an agreement exists between peripheral venous lactate (PV-LACT) and A-LACT with respect to sepsis in the Emergency Department (ED). PV-LACT lactate and A-LACT measurements were taken from a convenience sample of 37 patients presenting to a tertiary hospital ED between November 2010 and August 2011...

OBJECTIVES: Failure to recognize shock contributes to inadequate early resuscitation in many children with sepsis. Serum lactate levels are used to identify adult patients with septic shock, but physical examination diagnosis alone is recommended in pediatric sepsis. The authors sought to test the utility of lactate testing in pediatric emergency department (ED) patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). The hypothesis was that early hyperlactatemia (serum lactate ≥ 4...

PRINCIPLE: Serum lactate is a potentially useful biomarker to risk-stratify patients with severe sepsis; however, it is plausible that elevated serum lactate is simply a manifestation of clinically apparent organ dysfunction and/or shock (i.e., refractory hypotension). OBJECTIVE: To test whether the association between initial serum lactate level and mortality in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with severe sepsis is independent of organ dysfunction and shock...