BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the risk factors and outcome of critically ill cancer patients with postoperative acute respiratory insuffi ciency.
METHODS:The data of 190 critically ill cancer patients with postoperative acute respiratory insuffi ciency were retrospectively reviewed. The data of 321 patients with no acute respiratory insuffi ciency as controls were also collected. Clinical variables of the fi rst 24 hours after admission to intensive care unit were collected, including age, sex, comorbid disease, type of surgery, admission type, presence of shock, presence of acute kidney injury, presence of acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute physiologic and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II) score, sepsis-related organ failure assessment (SOFA), and PaO 2 /FiO 2 ratio. Duration of mechanical ventilation, length of intensive care unit stay, intensive care unit death, length of hospitalization, hospital death and one-year survival were calculated.
RESULTS:The incidence of acute respiratory insufficiency was 37.2% (190/321). Multivariate logistic analysis showed a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (P=0.001), surgeryrelated infection (P=0.004), hypo-volemic shock (P<0.001), and emergency surgery (P=0.018), were independent risk factors of postoperative acute respiratory insufficiency. Compared with the patients without acute respiratory insuffi ciency, the patients with acute respiratory insuffi ciency had a prolonged length of intensive care unit stay (P<0.001), a prolonged length of hospitalization (P=0.006), increased intensive care unit mortality (P=0.001), and hospital mortality (P<0.001). Septic shock was shown to be the only independent prognostic factor of intensive care unit death for the patients with acute respiratory insufficiency (P=0.029, RR: 8.522, B=2.143, SE=0.982, Wald=4.758). Compared with the patients without acute respiratory insufficiency, those with acute respiratory insuffi ciency had a shortened one-year survival rate (78.7% vs. 97.1%, P<0.001).CONCLUSION: A history of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, surgery-related infection, hypovolemic shock and emergency surgery were risk factors of critically ill cancer patients with postoperative acute respiratory insuffi ciency. Septic shock was the only independent prognostic factor of intensive care unit death in patients with acute respiratory insufficiency. Compared with patients without acute respiratory insufficiency, those with acute respiratory insufficiency had adverse shortterm outcome and a decreased one-year survival rate.