DYSLIPIDEMIA IN CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS

Abstract : Background Hypercholesterolemia is generally considered to be bad and hypocholesterolemia is good. But in critically ill patients hypocholesterolemia may actually increase the morbidity and mortality. The prognostic significance of profound hypocholesterolemia in critically ill patients has not been investigated in our populationMaterials and Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study has been carried out on critically ill patients in our tertiary care hospital. Base-line data, clinical history, the prognosis and the results of routine laboratory investigations including lipid profile were recorded. The patients (n 47) were classified into two groups survivors (n 24) and non-survivors (n 23). The results were analyzed using students t test and ROC plots.Results Several critically ill patients had extremely low lipid levels which were far below the reference range. The mean lipids values observed in our study population were TC 95 45, HDL c 14 6 , LDL- c 36 31 and TGL 181 111 mgdL respectively. TC, LDL-c and HDL-c were significantly lower in the non survivors (p 0.05) as compared with survivors. The ROC curves showed C statistic values of 0.763 for TC (p 0.0003) and 0.741 for LDL - c (p 0.0013). Conclusion Our study has demonstrated that low levels of both TC and LDL-c could serve as predictors of poor prognosis and mortality in critically ill patients. Keyword :Hypocholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, critical illness