ICEM: Hypotension Predicts Mortality in Emergency Patients

Those with systolic blood pressure less than 100 mm Hg are significantly more likely to die

FRIDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- In unselected adults who present at emergency departments, hypotension independently predicts in-hospital mortality, according to research presented this week at the 12th International Conference on Emergency Medicine in San Francisco.

Chris Vorwerk, M.D., of the Leicester Royal Infirmary in Leicester, U.K., and colleagues studied 4,318 patients, 89.1 percent of whom were non-trauma patients. Of these, 287 were identified as "exposure" patients with a systolic blood pressure at presentation of less than 100 mm Hg.

After a follow-up of 28 days, the researchers found that "exposures" were significantly more likely than "non-exposures" to die in hospital (19.9 percent versus 3.1 percent). Their logistic regression showed that hypotension at presentation was a significant predictor of mortality (odds ratio 7.8).

"Early clinical risk assessment in patients presenting to an emergency department is a key to prevent bad outcome," the authors write. "Risk assessment tools have to be simple and easy to use. A single non-invasive blood pressure measurement is quick and easily obtainable and is part of the standard initial assessment of emergency department patients."

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