• Lavi Oud and John Garza.
• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at the Permian Basin, 701 W. 5(th) Street, Odessa, TX 79763, United States. Electronic address: lavi.oud@ttuhsc.edu.
• J Crit Care. 2024 Feb 1; 79: 154427154427.

PurposePreviously healthy adults with community-onset sepsis were recently reported to have, counterintuitively, higher short-term mortality than those with comorbid conditions. However, the population-level generalizability of this finding and its applicability to all hospitalized septic patients are unclear.MethodsWe used a statewide dataset to identify hospitalizations aged ≥18 years with a diagnosis of sepsis in Texas during 2018-2019. Comorbidities were defined as those included in the Charlson Comorbidity Index and other prevalent conditions associated with mortality. Hierarchical models were used to estimate the association of comorbid state with short-term mortality (defined as in-hospital mortality or discharge to hospice), overall and in community-onset and hospital-onset sepsis.ResultsAmong 120,371 sepsis hospitalizations, 6611 (5.5%) were previously healthy and 105,455 (87.6%) had community-onset sepsis. Short-term mortality among the previously healthy and those with comorbidities was 11.7% vs 28.2% overall, 11.0% vs 25.2% in community-onset sepsis, and 22.0% vs 48.7% in hospital-onset sepsis, respectively. On adjusted analysis, being previously healthy remained associated with lower short-term mortality overall (adjusted odds ratio 0.62 [95% CI 0.57-0.69]), with findings consistent with the primary analysis in community-onset sepsis, hospital-onset sepsis.ConclusionsPreviously healthy septic patients had lower short-term mortality compared to those with comorbid conditions.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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