Early hyperoxemia is associated with lower adjusted mortality after severe trauma: results from a French registry

Each year, 5.8 million people die as result of trauma making it the leading cause of death for individuals below 45 years of age [1]. Furthermore, trauma constitutes a major economic burden, as trauma-related costs were estimated to $671 billion in 2013 in the USA alone [2]. Efforts to lower the mortality and morbidity following trauma are therefore of highest importance. The prehospital management of severe trauma patients requires a rapid approach during which it is recommended to provide supplemental oxygen to both treat and prevent hypoxemia [3, 4]. As a result, high fractions of inspired oxygen (FiO₂) are commonly administered during this initial phase and may result in hyperoxemia on hospital admission. However, exposure to high oxygen levels, even during a short period of time, has been associated with cerebral and coronary vasoconstriction, deleterious effects on lung function, and increased production of reactive oxygen species [5‐10].

In a large meta-analysis on randomized controlled trials (RCT), which compared liberal and conservative oxygenation administration in acutely ill patients, the relative risk of in-hospital mortality was increased amongst patients treated with a liberal oxygen approach compared to a conservative oxygen approach [11]. A recent systematic review also investigated the relationship between hyperoxemia and mortality in critically ill patients and found a similar association [12].

Despite an increasing awareness of the potentially deleterious effects of elevated arterial oxygen partial pressure (PaO₂) in acutely ill patients [13], the prevalence of hyperoxemia in the emergency department (ED) and the intensive care unit (ICU) remains high [14‐16]. Furthermore, a recent cohort study found a link between early hyperoxemia in the ED and mortality [14].

However, the association between hyperoxemia and mortality in the trauma population remains controversial. In one RCT, authors found no effect of exposure to different levels of FiO₂ on mortality amongst patients suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) [17]. A recent observational study on 24,148 mechanically ventilated patients with TBI found no effects of hyperoxemia on mortality either [18].

Taken as a whole, knowledge on the effects of hyperoxemia in trauma patients is sparse and the evidence for systematic oxygen therapy in these patients is thus inadequate, especially in the pre-hospital setting [19].

The primary objective of this study was to assess the association between elevated PaO₂ on hospital admission and in-hospital mortality in level I trauma centers. We hypothesized that a PaO₂ ≥ 150 mmHg on admission was associated with increased in-hospital mortality.

Of 6654 adult trauma patients with PaO₂ values available in the database, 544 were excluded as they were withdrawn from life-sustaining therapy and 462 were excluded as they were hypoxemic on arrival, leaving 5912 patients for analysis (Fig. 1).

The median age was 39 years and the majority were males (Table 1). More than half of all patients had an ISS score above 15, and one third presented with TBI. The overall in-hospital mortality was 10%.

On hospital admission, the median PaO₂ of the entire cohort was 133 mmHg: 3342 (57%) were normoxemic, and 2570 (43%) were hyperoxemic. Numerous baseline characteristics were significantly different between normoxemic and hyperoxemic patients: a higher proportion of hyperoxemic patients were mechanically ventilated (a comparison of baseline characteristics between intubated and spontaneously breathing patients can be found in Additional file 2), they had lower prehospital GCS scores and more suffered from a TBI. On univariate analysis, the in-hospital mortality was higher for hyperoxemic patients (12% versus 9%, p < 0.0001) (Table 1).

In a propensity score model, patients were matched based upon significant determinants of mortality amongst the baseline characteristics (Table 2). The model revealed an inverse relationship between hyperoxemia and in-hospital mortality: mortality was significantly decreased in hyperoxemic patients compared to normoxemic patients (OR 0.59 [0.50–0.70], p < 0.0001) and hyperoxemia thus appeared as a protective factor. The accuracy of the model is presented in Fig. 2. Here, the balances in potentials confounders were also checked, and the absolute mean differences were all less than 5% after using propensity score (IPTW and matching methods). The multivariate full model including factors used in propensity score verified the results of the propensity score (Additional file 3). A complete-case analysis presented very similar results (OR 0.60 [0.46–0.78], p < 0.0001).

In a sensitivity analysis, where patients deceased within 24 h were excluded, the results remained statistically significant (OR 0.63 [0.52–0.76], p < 0.0001) (Table 3).

Likewise, in our subgroup analysis on patients with a GCS < 8, mortality was also decreased in hyperoxemic patients (OR 0.69 [0.53–0.89], p = 0.005). The same was true in a subgroup analysis on intubated patients (OR 0.62 [0.50–0.77], p < 0.0001) (Table 3).

Furthermore, our sensitivity analyses also showed a beneficial effect on mortality using PaO₂/FiO₂ ≥ 300, and different cut-off levels for hyperoxemia (PaO₂ ≥ 100 mmHg and PaO₂ ≥ 200 mmHg) left our results largely unaltered (Table 3).

In this large observational study of nearly 6000 trauma patients, we found hyperoxemia above 150 mmHg on hospital admission to be independently associated with a significantly decreased in-hospital mortality compared to normoxemia. This result challenges our initial hypothesis. Our results were unaltered by a sensitivity analysis, where patients deceased within 24 h were excluded.

The beneficial effects of supplemental oxygen for the critically ill patient have remained undisputed for decades and have resulted in international guidelines on initial trauma management recommending high fractions of inspired oxygen. However, although it is suspected that hyperoxemia may be deleterious (due to increased oxidative stress, vasoconstriction, and potential hyperoxemic lung injury) [31], the evidence both in favor and against supplemental oxygen, and thus the risk of hyperoxemia, is almost non-existent in trauma patients [19].

Supplemental oxygen seems to possess a potential to rescue threatened neurons after brain injury or in the ischemic penumbra [32, 33], and it is known to prolong the safe apnea time [34]. Nevertheless, numerous physiologic arguments exist against liberal administration of oxygen in critically ill patients. For example, excess oxygen has been associated with the formation of reactive oxygen species which are detoxified in the mitochondria by a variety of antioxidants. Furthermore, acute states such as shock induce an increased production of reactive oxygen species worsening the imbalance between pro-oxidants and antioxidants [6].

In recent years, the optimal targets of both SpO₂ and PaO₂ have therefore been challenged in acutely ill patients. A large meta-analysis showed increased rates of mortality for patients with oxygen saturation (SpO₂) above 96% compared to 94–96% [11]. However, as the trial sequential analysis was driven primarily by a single large randomized trial [35], the authors were unable to exclude a small beneficial effect of liberal oxygen. Only one RCT on trauma patients was included, and here no effect of liberal oxygen was observed. Another meta-analysis on patients with cardiac arrest showed beneficial effects of oxygen intra-arrest while post-arrest arrest hyperoxemia was associated with increased mortality [36]. A recent systematic review found a higher all-cause mortality in ICU patient with hyperoxemia [25]; however, in subgroup analyses on patients with TBI and patients on mechanical ventilation, results were inconclusive.

In trauma patients, studies on liberal versus conservative oxygen approaches are sparse. To date, only two small RCTs have been done on patients with TBI, and here, one found difference between a liberal and restrictive oxygen approach on mortality [17], and the other found no differences in terms of neurological outcome [37]. Furthermore, the few retrospective studies available have shown inconsistent results: one recent large study showed no difference in in-hospital mortality between hyperoxemic and normoxemic trauma patients [18], others have shown a deleterious effect of hyperoxemia [38, 39], and yet two studies have found a strong relationship between hyperoxemia and better long-term, functional, and cognitive outcomes [24, 40]. As such the physiologic consequences of hyperoxemia on outcomes after TBI remain uncovered. In several studies, a decrease in cerebral perfusion of up to 30% has been observed in individuals exposed to hyperoxia [41‐43], while other studies have suggested that hyperoxia aids in one of the cornerstones in treatment of traumatic brain injury: decreasing intracranial pressure [44‐46]. Supplemental oxygen could also be beneficial in TBI by simply increasing the level of oxygen in the brain. In stroke patients, supplemental oxygen has been proposed to rescue threatened neurons, and thus the brain, from further deterioration [47]. Nonetheless, studies so far have failed to show an association between supplemental oxygen and improved physical function [35, 48]. Further research in larger cohorts should look into this to help uncover the induced pathways.

In accordance with several of the above studies, we found a clinical benefit of early hyperoxemia in the current study. Of note, however, all the latter studies focus solely on trauma patients with TBI, whereas we chose to include all trauma patients to present a broader and more pragmatic perspective, as isolated TBI may not always be evident in the acute phase. Nonetheless, in our subgroup analysis of patients with GCS < 8, our results were unchanged.

The comparison of studies on hyperoxemia is difficult as some studies compare SpO₂ values, others FiO₂ values, and others PaO₂ values. Besides, when utilizing the PaO_2, there is no consensus on the arbitrarily predetermined PaO₂ cut-off [25]. In the current study, we chose to use 150 mmHg as the threshold for hyperoxemia as it presented a large percentage of our population (43%), and in addition, this approach has been used previously [22‐25]. Numerous other studies have chosen values above 300 mmHg to present hyperoxemia, thereby considering values below 300 mmHg as normoxemic, which appears problematic. Furthermore, many studies have used the worst PaO₂ (the highest PaO₂) as their exposure variable [49, 50]. We chose to use the first PaO₂ recorded at hospital admission to reflect the pre-hospital treatment. This has previously been done [38, 51]. Finally, the exposure duration should also be taken into account. As such, the attempt to answer whether or not hyperoxemia is harmful—in any patient population—should always aim to consider the variable measured (SpO₂, PaO₂ or FiO₂), the concentration of the given variable, and the exposure duration.

Our results reflect the liberal use of pre-hospital oxygen administration of severe trauma patients, and we found a high percentage (43%) of patients with hyperoxemia at hospital admission. Although the duration of hyperoxemia in our study must be assumed to be relatively short (mean prehospital time from trauma until admission of 70 min), several studies have found that deleterious effects of hyperoxemia may occur already during the first hours of administration. For example, both human and animal data have shown development of lung injury after just a few hours of exposure to hyperoxemia [10, 22, 52]. Furthermore, prehospital supplemental oxygen administration for patients with myocardial infarction has been associated with increased myocardial injury and infarct size at 6 months [53], and in a recent study, an association between an even shorter exposure time to hyperoxia and mortality was found in mechanically ventilated patients in the emergency department [14].

Nevertheless, in a recent small single center observational study, authors found no impact on 30-day mortality in trauma patients with early hyperoxemia [54], and in our current study on trauma patients, we even found a significant association between hyperoxemia on admission and decreased mortality compared to normoxemia on admission. The threshold for potentially toxic concentrations and duration of administration of oxygen are poorly defined, and the mechanisms behind a favorable effect may, at least partly, be explained by hemodynamic stabilization during shock, improvement in tissue bed oxygenation in both peri-contusional and remote neuronal tissue, and more aerobic neural metabolic profiles [55]. These could be some of the explanation behind a positive effect of short-term hyperoxemia in the current study along with the actual ability of the affected individual to increase their PaO₂ as demonstrated in the PaO₂/FiO₂ sensitivity analysis. Regarding the exact threshold, the current study also shows that this may point towards mild hyperoxemia being the most beneficial, as the beneficial effect seemed to decrease when a higher PaO₂ was used to define hyperoxemia.

In the current study, we found early hyperoxemia in severe trauma patients to be associated with a reduced in-hospital mortality. This result may support systematic administration of oxygen in trauma patients during the initial management in the prehospital setting, but the retrospective nature of the study warrants its careful interpretation. The study calls for a randomized clinical trial to further investigate this association.