• D A Oke.
• Department of Medicine, College of Medicine of the Univerisity of Lagos, Idi-Araba, Nigeria.
• Niger Postgrad Med J. 2001 Dec 1;8(4):179-82.

AbstractThe paper presents patterns of medical admissions into the intensive care unit of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) over an eight-year period from September 1990 to August 1998. Medical admission constituted 15% out of which 1% received surgery for medical complications. Patients with neurological diseases recorded the highest number of admission most of them being for tetanus. The commonest indication for admission was for respiratory insufficiency (33%). All the patients admitted for sub arachnoid haemorrhage, fulminant hepatitis, meningitis and motor neurone disease died. The least mortality was found amongst patients admitted for tetanus who constituted about 44% of the total number of medical admissions. The overall mortality rate was 69% and it was observed that the ages of the patients did not appear to affect the outcome except in patients who were admitted for myocardial infarction and cardiogenic shock. This study emphasizes the need to evolve a system of health evaluation of predicting the survival index of individual patients. There is an urgent need for proper training, motivation of staff and maintenance of equipment used in the ICU.

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