The relationship between ICU hypotension and in-hospital mortality and morbidity in septic patients

Given the complexity of defining hypotension exposure, we analyzed both time-weighted average (TWA) and the cumulative time under specific thresholds. TWA-MAP is a comprehensive measure of hypotension exposure because it measures both the degree and the duration below a threshold. Continuous time below a MAP threshold is intuitive but neglects severity of hypotension and is subject to two types of variation: the frequency of MAP readings, and the total time for MAP exposure calculation. Spurious extreme values can occur and distort the results due to (1) gaps between readings (carried forward) that can over-represent times below a given MAP threshold, especially as there were more and longer gaps in patients who spent long periods below various thresholds; and (2) patients with longer ICU stays may have been especially prone to hypotension. To minimize both sources of error, we excluded patients with fewer than five blood pressures recorded per each 24-h period, and those who had more than two gaps exceeding 5 h between readings.

We observed strong associations between the TWA-MAP below various thresholds and in-hospital mortality and kidney injury in septic patients. Substantial mortality risk was evident even among the higher thresholds, and the risk progressively increased as the MAP thresholds decreased from 85 to 55 mmHg. A similar relationship between in-hospital mortality and cumulative time < 65 mmHg was also observed. It is important to note that the TWA-MAP and cumulative time measures below a given threshold are nested and not mutually exclusive (e.g., patients with TWA-MAP < 55 mmHg are included in the analysis of TWA-MAP < 65 mmHg). We, therefore, cannot definitively determine an optimal threshold with this study design alone.

As with in-hospital mortality, we observed that odds of developing AKI was associated with hypotension characterized by TWA-MAP, with the odds of developing AKI being greatest for MAP readings < 55 mmHg and lowest for MAP < 85 mmHg. However, similar trends were not observed in the cumulative minutes of MAP below threshold groups. We theorize that is because we excluded AKI and myocardial injury before and within 24 h of ICU admission and restricted this outcome to the first 7 days of exposure. Also, myocardial injury may be undercounted when routine troponin monitoring is not performed.

Overall, our results are consistent with previous literature with notable exceptions. Prior research found that increasing the MAP from 65 to 85 mmHg with norepinephrine does not significantly affect systemic oxygen metabolism, skin microcirculatory blood flow, urine output, renal function, or splanchnic perfusion—although cardiac index increased [19, 20]. However, a prospective study of thirteen patients with septic shock found that increasing MAP to above 65 mmHg with norepinephrine increased cardiac output, improved microvascular function, and was associated with decreased blood lactate concentrations. The investigators noticed that microvascular responses varied considerably among patients, suggesting that individualization of blood pressure targets may be warranted [21].

Only limited evidence from randomized trials provides guidance on optimal thresholds. Asfar et al. [22] randomized 776 septic shock patients and reported that 28- and 90-day mortality did not differ significantly between those who were treated to reach a target MAP of 80–85 mmHg and those who were treated to reach a target of 65–70 mmHg [19]. However, even in the lower MAP target group the blood pressure was maintained at 70–75 mmHg and authors noticed a lower than expected death rate, which supports our findings using a much larger cohort and suggests a threshold above 65 mmHg may be more appropriate. This study also highlights the complexity of performing randomized trials in this population and the value of our analysis.

We observed that 14.6% of patients with sepsis died during hospitalization over the period from 2010 to 2016. Presumably patients in our cohort were sicker than all sepsis patients given a required ICU stay of at least 1 day. However, two recent European studies found sepsis mortality to range from 8 to 26%. [18, 19] This is in contrast to higher in-hospital mortality of 26% reported from analysis of a German patient population from 2007 to 2013 [23]. Furthermore, Freund and colleagues [24], based on 2016 European hospital data, observed 8% in-hospital mortality in patients with suspected sepsis. These results suggest that outcomes from sepsis may be improving over time.

In general, AKI in critically ill patients affects approximately 40% of the patients at some time during their stay and one third who develop renal injury die within 90 days [16]. In a study consistent with ours, hypotensive episodes of MAP < 73 mmHg were associated with progression of AKI in critically ill patients with severe sepsis [17].

Myocardial injury, measured by troponin elevation, may be as high as 15–25% in ICU patients, but is often unrecognized because routine troponin monitoring remains uncommon [16, 25]. When troponins are routinely monitored in septic ICU patients, only 7% of biomarker elevations happened within 24 h of ICU admission [26]. While our definition of myocardial injury artificially lowered the observed rate by excluding cases within 24 h of ICU admission and after AKI development), we still observed significant association between TWA-MAP < 65 mmHg and myocardial injury. However, it is possible that a raised troponin value is present in the absence of myocardial injury [27], although raised troponin values have been tied with myocardial injury within the septic population [28‐31]. Our results of myocardial injury analysis should be interpreted with caution due to lack of universal troponin screening and diverse troponin tests employed among various U.S. Hospitals.

We report associations between hypotension in ICU patients and both myocardial and kidney injury. However, we report associations which are surely at least to some degree confounded by unobserved baseline patient characteristics. Randomized trials will be required to confirm causal relationships that may benefit from intervention. Another study limitation is our inability to distinguish between untreated hypotension and hypotension that persisted despite treatment—and thus presumably indicated worse sepsis. To address this, we adjusted for medication use and other potential confounders. Nevertheless, unmeasured confounding remains likely. For example, septic patients are always given antibiotics, some of which are nephrotoxic. However, we did not attempt to link specific antibiotics to AKI. Hypotension identification and duration is dependent upon the frequency of recorded blood pressure readings. While some MAP data (up to two 5-h gaps per record) were missing, an average 357 MAP readings were available per ICU day which indicates that the exposure was generally well characterized.

We were also unable to distinguish hypotension that is a marker of severe sepsis from hypotension that directly contributed to organ dysfunction. The distinction is important because interventions to reduce hypotension will only improve the fraction of organ dysfunction that is causally related to blood pressure. Additionally, some treatments for hypotension can themselves provoke organ injury. For example, increased rates of atrial fibrillation are noted with higher vasopressor use [22]. Nonetheless, our results suggest that harm may begin to accrue well above the currently recommended initial threshold of 65 mmHg, and higher for older patients and those with cardiovascular comorbidities [3]. However, the definitive way to answer how the duration of hypotension impacts mortality and other outcomes in critically ill sepsis patients is via a prospective, randomized controlled trial that follows a standard protocol for vasopressor and intravenous fluid use. This study did not examine outcomes post ICU or hospital discharge; therefore the association with mid- to long-term outcomes are unknown. And finally, while our measure of ICU duration is based on the timing of laboratory and medication orders, given their frequency in critically ill patients, this limitation seems unlikely to bias our results substantially.

In summary, the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines suggest keeping mean arterial pressure initially above 65 mmHg, followed by individualized treatment to optimize tissue perfusion. In our analysis, risks for mortality, AKI and myocardial injury were apparent by 85 mmHg, and for mortality and AKI risk progressively worsened at lower thresholds. Until randomized trials show that the relationship between hypotension and serious complications is not causal, it would probably be prudent to keep mean arterial pressure well above 65 mmHg in septic ICU patients.