Base excess and lactate as prognostic indicators for patients admitted to intensive care - 15 years later

Introduction Identifying patients who may deteriorate on the ward and need admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) is imprecise. Numerous variables, alone or in combination, have been used to identify patients who may benefit from ICU admission. A predictive test should be accurate, reliable, easy to measure and cheap. [1] 15 years ago an observational study from our unit showed that both base excess (BE) and lactate, or combination of both, can be used to predict outcome in patients admitted to ITU [2]. We replicated this study to find out if BE and lactate are still useful prognostic indicators for patients admitted to ITU.