Skip to main content
  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Ischemic stroke in different ICU types

Introduction

In our hospital there are a general intensive care unit (GICU) and a neurointensive care unit (NICU). Despite the preference for the NICU, in both there are admissions for ischemic stroke. There are different staff for each ICU, with the same physician's leadership. We have decided to evaluate the performance of both ICUs, analysing whether there are differences in results as some authors publish best results in specialized ICUs.

Methods

Using prospectively collected data, we undertook a retrospective evaluation of all patients admitted to the GICU and NICU of our hospital with the diagnosis of ischemic stroke, from December 2010 to November 2012. In both ICUs there are intensivists, but in the NICU the intensivists have special expertise in neuroscience. Data were collected from Epimedmonitor.

Results

A total of 3,854 admissions were registered in the period in both ICUs, with 257 (6.7%) being by ischemic stroke - 49 in GICU and 208 in NICU. Mean age of patients: 73 years in GICU and 70.1 years in NICU. Admissions from emergency unit: 44 (89.8%) GICU, 181 (87%) NICU. Mean SAPS 3 score: 50.7 (29 to 71) GICU, 50.6 (29 to 98) NICU. Patients admitted with infection: 6 (12.2%) GICU, 10 (4.81%) NICU. Mean Charlson comorbidity index points: 1.61 (median 1.0) GICU, 1.1 (median 1.0) NICU. Mean length of ICU stay: 4.8 days (median 3) GICU, 4.3 days (median 3) NICU. Mean length of hospital stay: 12.2 days (median 8) GICU, 14.5 days (median 8) NICU. Predicted hospital mortality (mean ± SD): 20.07% ± 13.48 GICU, 20.4% ± 13.83 NICU. Hospital mortality rate: 12.5% GICU, 5.39% NICU. Observed-to-expected (O/E) mortality ratios: 0.62 GICU, 0.26 NICU.

Conclusion

Despite the similar proportions numbers for patients in both ICUs, the mortality rate and the O/E mortality ratio for ischemic stroke were higher in patients of the GICU when compared with the NICU.

References

  1. Varelas PN, et al.: Neurocrit Care. 2008, 9: 293-299. 10.1007/s12028-008-9050-6

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Berchad EM, et al.: Neurocrit Care. 2008, 9: 287-292. 10.1007/s12028-008-9051-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Damasceno, M., Rodriguez, F. & Turon, R. Ischemic stroke in different ICU types. Crit Care 17 (Suppl 2), P497 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12435

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12435

Keywords