Clinical Outcomes Associated with Fluid Overload in Critically Ill Pediatric Patients

Abstract

Fluid overload (FO) has been accused as being one of the ICU problems affecting morbidity and mortality. The aim of the study was to assess the effect and critical threshold of FO that is related to mortality. This prospective observational study was conducted in a pediatric ICU. All patients admitted (n = 203) during 12 months with a length of stay more than 48 h were recruited. FO was found to be related to mortality (p = 0.025) but was not proved to be an independent risk factor of fatal outcome by the logistic regression model. This raises the suspicion about any cause-effect relationship between FO and mortality. Even though, FO was statistically a fair discriminator of death (AUC = 0.655, p = 0.0008) and a cutoff level of FO was set at 7%. Kaplan-Meier curve showed that cumulative of survival differed significantly between groups of patients with FO more and less than 7% (p = 0.002). Frequent and accurate monitoring of FO is crucial among critically ill patients. The present study suggested a threshold of 7% FO beyond which a more conservative regimen of fluid administration might improve patients' outcome.