a Novel Index for Tissue Perfusion in Predicting Outcome in Patients With Septic Shock

Septic shock is a life-threatening condition with mortality rate of up to -40%. Septic shock is catheterized by altered microcirculation that leads to tissue hypoperfusion and ultimately multi-organ dysfunction. Hence, maintenance of adequate tissue perfusion is the mainstay of resuscitation of patients with septic shock. Serum lactate is still considered the gold standard for evaluation of tissue perfusion. Thus, according to the latest definition, elevated serum lactate, as an indicator of tissue hypo-perfusion, is required for diagnosis of septic shock. However, lactate level change in response to resuscitation is slow even in survivors. Capillary refill time (CRT) is a simple method for assessing peripheral perfusion. Monitoring CRT was found to be a good tool for guiding resuscitation and delayed CRT showed good ability in predicting mortality in patients with septic shock. To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous report assessing the reliability of an index that include both serum lactate and CRT (lactate/CRT index) in predicting mortality in patients with septic shock. We hypothesize that the lactate/CRT index would have good accuracy in predicting mortality in patient with septic shock.