Evaluation of acid-base status in patients admitted to ED-physicochemical vs traditional approaches.

Link to article at PubMed

Evaluation of acid-base status in patients admitted to ED-physicochemical vs traditional approaches.

Am J Emerg Med. 2014 Dec 23;

Authors: Antonogiannaki EM, Mitrouska I, Amargianitakis V, Georgopoulos D

Abstract
BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to evaluate the value of physicochemical, base excess (BE), and plasma bicarbonate concentration ([HCO3(-)]) approaches on the assessment of acid-base status in patients presented to the emergency department (ED).
METHODS: Upon presentation at ED, patients whose arterial blood was deemed in need of analysis were studied. Arterial blood gases, serum electrolytes, and proteins were measured and used to derive [HCO3(-)], BE, anion gap (AG), AG adjusted for albumin (AGadj), strong ion difference, strong ion gap (SIG) and SIG corrected for water excess/deficit (SIGcor). In each patient the acid-base status was evaluated using the BE, [HCO3(-)], and physicochemical approaches.
RESULTS: A total of 365 patients were studied. Compared with BE (n = 202) and [HCO3(-)] (n = 151), physicochemical approach (n = 279) identified significantly more patients with metabolic acid-base disturbances (P < .0001). Significantly fewer patients with unmeasured anions acidosis were identified with AGadj than with SIGcor (164 vs 230; P < .0001). On the basis of BE, 75 patients had normal acid-base balance, and 65 (87%) of them exhibited at least 1 hidden acid-base disturbance, identified by the physicochemical approach. The corresponding values with [HCO3(-)] approach were 108 and 95 (88%) patients. When patients with high AGadj were excluded, 44 patients with BE and 67 with [HCO3(-)] approach had normal acid-base status, and most of them exhibited at least 1 acid-base disturbance with the physicochemical approach, whereas 12 and 21 patients, respectively, had high SIGcor.
CONCLUSION: Compared with the BE and [HCO3(-)] methods, the physicochemical approach has a better diagnostic accuracy to identify metabolic acid-base disturbances.

PMID: 25592251 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *