Cancer, dementia can accelerate death risk in sepsis patients: Study

Cancer and dementia are the major risk factors that increase the risk of mortality among patients with sepsis admitted to the emergency medical department, according to a study on Tuesday.

Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency caused by a dysregulated host immune response to an infection that claims millions of lives globally each year.

The study led by a team of Danish researchers found that age and heart disease were the other reasons that can raise the risk of death in sepsis patients within two years.

“We found that certain factors increased the risk of death after sepsis, including, not surprisingly, advanced age,” said Dr. Finn E. Nielsen, a senior scientist in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.

“Additionally, conditions such as dementia, heart disease, cancer, and previous hospitalisation with sepsis within the last six months before admission also elevated the risk of dying during a median follow-up period of two years,” Nielsen said.

In the paper, presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in Copenhagen, the team examined deaths over a long follow-up period in a prospective study of 714 adult patients admitted to the emergency department with sepsis between October 2017 and the end of March 2018.

The team found that after a median of two years, 361 (50.6 per cent) of the patients with sepsis had died from any cause, including sepsis.

Older age increases the risk of death by 4 per cent for every additional year of age.

Furthermore, a history of cancer more than doubled the risk (121 per cent), and ischaemic heart disease (a condition in which the arteries supplying blood to the heart narrow or become blocked by a build-up of fat) increased the risk by 39 per cent, dementia increased the risk by 90 per cent, and previous admission with sepsis within the last six months increased the risk by 48 per cent.

“Recognising that sepsis is a serious illness with high mortality is crucial,” Nielsen said.

As the study was carried out in a single centre, further research in larger, prospective studies is needed, the team said.