Albumin disposition in critically Ill patients.

Abstract

The purpose of this critical narrative review is to analyse studies evaluating the disposition of albumin in critically ill patients and to compare the findings to studies involving healthy subjects and less severely ill patients. PubMed and EMBASE were reviewed for prospective studies involving the disposition of radiolabelled albumin. Studies of normal volunteers, patients undergoing surgical procedures and critically ill patients indicate a relationship between increasing disease acuity or severity and increasing transcapillary escape of albumin. In the only study that directly compared the disposition of radiolabelled albumin in healthy subjects and patients with septic shock, the transcapillary escape rate of albumin was more than twice as rapid in the patients with shock. Limited studies suggest that increasing disease severity increases transcapillary escape of albumin. Only one study compared the disposition of radiolabelled albumin in healthy subjects and critically ill patients. More studies are needed in subsets of critically ill patients.