Will my patient survive? Look for creatinine in the urine!

Excerpt

The ability to risk stratify critically ill patients and target intensive care unit resources to those who benefit the most is appealing and has resulted in a growing interest in the search for novel risk factors [1, 2]. Performance status has gained significant attention recently [3, 4]. In the same line, poor nutritional status, often judged by a low body mass index (BMI), is a prominent factor associated with poor short- and long-term outcomes [5, 6]. Several assessments of nutritional status and muscle mass have been evaluated and validated, such as albumin and prealbumin levels, anthropometric measurements, skeletal muscle mass or fat infiltration measured by imaging studies, various scores or multicomponent scales, fat-free mass or the sarcopenia index [7‐9]. Some of these parameters have been reported to be associated with outcome in ICU patients [7‐9]. …