FRIDAY, Feb. 10, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- People who are critically ill and have metabolic acidosis -- higher than normal acid levels in the blood -- are twice as likely to die as critically ill patients without acidosis, U.S. researchers report.
The study, by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Pittsburgh, included 548 patients with metabolic acidosis and a control group of 303 patients without metabolic acidosis.
Reporting in the Feb. 8 issue of Critical Care, they found the overall death rate for patients with metabolic acidosis was 45 percent, compared with 26 percent for the patients in the control group.
Metabolic acidosis can occur in a variety of forms, including lactic acidosis, strong ion gap (SIG) acidosis and hypercholeremic acidosis. The researchers conclude that both lactic and SIG acidosis were strong, independent predictors of hospital patient death and both should be closely monitored in critically ill patients.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about metabolic acidosis.
