• Qi Guo, Hai-Yan Li, Wei-Dong Song, Ming Li, Xiao-Ke Chen, Hui Liu, Hong-Lin Peng, Hai-Qiong Yu, Nian Liu, Yan-Hong Li, Zhong-Dong Lü, Li-Hua Liang, Qing-Zhou Zhao, and Mei Jiang.
• Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Shenzhen Hospital, Peking University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
• Ann. Med. 2024 Dec 1; 56 (1): 23970902397090.

BackgroundThe quick sequential [sepsis-related] organ failure assessment (qSOFA) acts as a prompt to consider possible sepsis. The contributions of individual qSOFA elements to assessment of severity and for prediction of mortality remain unknown.MethodsA total of 3974 patients with community-acquired pneumonia were recruited to an observational prospective cohort study. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), odds ratio, relative risk and Youden's index were employed to assess discrimination.ResultsRespiratory rate ≥22/min demonstrated the most superior diagnostic value, indicated by largest odds ratio, relative risk and AUROC, and maximum Youden's index for mortality. However, the indices for altered mentation and systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≤100 mm Hg decreased notably in turn. The predictive validities of respiratory rate ≥22/min, altered mentation and SBP ≤100 mm Hg were good, adequate and poor for mortality, indicated by AUROC (0.837, 0.734 and 0.671, respectively). Respiratory rate ≥22/min showed the strongest associations with SOFA scores, pneumonia severity index, hospital length of stay and costs. However, SBP ≤100 mm Hg was most weakly correlated with the indices.ConclusionsRespiratory rate ≥22/min made the greatest contribution to parsimonious qSOFA to assess severity and predict mortality. However, the contributions of altered mentation and SBP ≤100 mm Hg decreased strikingly in turn. It is the first known prospective evidence of the contributions of individual qSOFA elements to assessment of severity and for prediction of mortality, which might have implications for more accurate clinical triage decisions.

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