• B Pesau, S Falger, E Berger, J Weimann, E Schuster, C Leithner, and M Frass.
• Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Vienna, Austria.
• Crit. Care Med. 1992 Apr 1;20(4):489-92.

ObjectiveTo assess the influence of age on the outcome of patients receiving prolonged mechanical ventilation.DesignRetrospective study.SettingIntensive care unit.PatientsA total of 1,141 patients in our ICU during a 32-month period. A total of 536 patients required mechanical ventilation. After exclusion of 171 patients ventilated for less than 24 hrs after surgery, 365 patients were investigated.Measurements And Main ResultsTwo hundred sixty-six (73%) patients were aged less than 70 yrs; 99 (27%) patients were greater than or equal to 70 yrs. There was no significant difference in mortality rate between the younger and the older age groups. There was no significant influence of other important factors, such as severity of illness, duration of mechanical ventilation, or length of ICU stay. The only factor showing a significant influence on patient outcome was the reason for mechanical ventilation. There were more survivors in the group being ventilated because of ventilatory insufficiency than in the group with oxygenation impairment (57.8% vs. 23.9%, p less than .001).ConclusionAn influence of age on the outcome of mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU could not be ascertained in this study.

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