• Tiffany M N Otero, Cecilia Canales, D Dante Yeh, Peter C Hou, Donna M Belcher, and Sadeq A Quraishi.
• Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA, 02111; Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114. Electronic address: totero@partners.org.
• J Crit Care. 2016 Aug 1; 34: 7-11.

PurposeRecent evidence suggests that red cell distribution width (RDW) is associated with mortality in mixed cohorts of critically ill patients. Our goal was to investigate whether elevated RDW at initiation of critical care in the intensive care unit (ICU) is associated with 90-day mortality in surgical patients.MethodsWe performed a retrospective, single-center cohort study. Normal RDW was defined as 11.5%-14.5%. To investigate the association of admission RDW with 90-day mortality, we performed a logistic regression analysis, controlling for age, sex, race, body mass index, Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 score, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, hospital length of stay, as well as levels of creatinine, albumin, and mean corpuscular volume.Results500 patients comprised the analytic cohort; 47% patients had elevated RDW and overall 90-day mortality was 28%. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that patients with elevated RDW had a greater than two-fold increased odds of mortality (OR 2.28: 95%CI 1.20-4.33) compared to patients with normal RDW.ConclusionsElevated RDW at initiation of care is associated with increased odds of 90-day mortality in surgical ICU patients. These data support the need for prospective studies to determine whether RDW can improve risk stratification in surgical ICU patients.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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