Background: Prognostic scores in an intensive care unit (ICU) evaluate outcomes, but derive from cohorts containing few cirrhotic patients.
Aims: To evaluate 6-week mortality in cirrhotic patients admitted to an ICU, and to compare general and liver-specific prognostic scores.
Methods: A total of 312 consecutive cirrhotic patients (65% alcoholic; mean age 49.6 years). Multivariable logistic regression to evaluate admission factors associated with survival. Child-Pugh, Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) scores were compared by receiver operating characteristic curves.
Results: Major indication for admission was respiratory failure (35.6%). Median (range) Child-Pugh, APACHE II, MELD and SOFA scores were 11 (5-15), 18 (0-44), 24 (6-40) and 11 (0-21), respectively; 65% (n = 203) died. Survival improved over time (P = 0.005). Multivariate model factors: more organs failing (FOS) (<3 = 49.5%, > or =3 = 90%), higher FiO(2), lactate, urea and bilirubin; resulting in good discrimination [area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) = 0.83], similar to SOFA and MELD (AUC = 0.83 and 0.81, respectively) and superior to APACHE II and Child-Pugh (AUC = 0.78 and 0.72, respectively).
Conclusions: Cirrhotics admitted to ICU with > or =3 failing organ systems have 90% mortality. The Royal Free model discriminated well and contained key variables of organ function. SOFA and MELD were better predictors than APACHE II or Child-Pugh scores.