Incidence of late-onset hyperlactatemia and association with clinical outcomes in intensive care patients

Abstract

Objective: To perform a systematic literature review to summarise current evidence of the incidence and clinical impact of late-onset hyperlactatemia in intensive care patients about case-fatality and morbidity. Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and ClinicalTrials. gov were searched using medical subject headings from database inception to 27 November 2024. Before the search, the protocol was registered on the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO). Two independent reviewers screened the search results, and studies were included if they were original research that assessed late-onset hyperlactatemia in critically ill patients. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, and the data were analysed using a descriptive approach without meta-analysis. Results: Of the 10,388 screened studies, 6 were included in the final manuscript, 5 retrospective and 1 prospective. All were assessed as good quality studies. Five were cardiac surgical patients, and one was general intensive care patients. All six studies reported the incidence of late-onset hyperlactatemia, which ranged from 8.5 to 70.8%. Two studies reported increased intensive care unit and/or hospital case-fatality with late-onset hyperlactatemia; however, small absolute numbers limited the interpretability. Conclusion: The limited data regarding late-onset hyperlactatemia make it difficult to draw significant conclusions regarding the relationship to clinical outcomes. However, the few available studies suggest that it is a common finding and highlight the need for further research to assess the underlying aetiologies and association with clinical outcomes.