Annual prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes of intensive care patients with skin or soft tissue infections in Australia and New Zealand: A retrospective cohort study between 2006-2017

How to manage skin and soft-tissue infections in the emergency department

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Our purpose is to review the state-of-the-art on the management of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) in emergency departments (ED).Although the information is scarce, SSTI may account for 3-30% of all cases presenting to an ED, of which 25-40% require hospital admission.SSTI include very different entities in aetiology, location, pathogenesis, extension, and severity. Therefore, no single management can be applied to them all. A simple approach is to classify them as non-purulent, purulent, and necrotising, to which a severity scale based on their systemic repercussions (mild, moderate, and severe) must be added.The initial approach to many SSTIs often requires no other means than anamnesis and physical examination, but imaging tests are an indispensable complement in many other circumstances (ultrasound, computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging…). In our opinion, an attempt at etiological filiation should be made in severe cases or where there is suspicion of a causality other than the usual one, with tests based not only on cultures of the local lesion but also molecular tests and blood cultures.

RECENT FINDINGS

Recent contributions of interest include the value of bedside ultrasound and the potential usefulness of biomarkers such as thrombomodulin to differentiate in early stages the presence of necrotising lesions not yet explicit.New antimicrobials will allow the treatment of many of these infections, including severe ones, with oral drugs with good bioavailability and for shorter periods.

SUMMARY

The ED has an essential role in managing SSTIs, in their classification, in decisions on when and where to administer antimicrobial treatment, and in the rapid convening of multidisciplinary teams that can deal with the most complex situations.

Outcomes and factors associated with occult septic shock in emergency department patients with soft tissue Infection

Introduction:

Patients who develop occult septic shock (OSS) are associated with worse outcomes than those with early septic shock (ESS). Patients with skin and soft tissue infection (SSTI) may have underlying organ dysfunction due to OSS, yet the prevalence and the outcomes of patients with SSTI and early versus occult shock have not been described. This study compared the clinical characteristics of SSTI patients and the prevalence of having no septic shock (NSS), ESS, or OSS.

Methods:

We retrospectively analyzed charts of adult patients who were transferred from any emergency department to our academic center between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2016. Outcomes of interest were the development of OSS and acute kidney injury (AKI). We performed logistic regressions to measure the association between clinical factors with the outcomes and created probability plots to show the relationship between key clinical variables and outcomes of OSS or AKI.

Results:

Among 269 patients, 218 (81%) patients had NSS, 16 (6%) patients had ESS, and 35 (13%) patients had OSS. Patients with OSS had higher mean serum lactate concentrations than patients with NSS (3.5 vs. 2.1 mmol/L, P < 0.01). Higher sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score was associated with higher likelihood of developing OSS (odds ratio [OR] 1.41, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23–1.62, P < 0.001). NSS was associated with very low odds of developing AKI (OR 0.16, 95% CI 0.08–0.33, P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

13% of the patients with SSTI developed OSS. Patients with OSS had elevated serum lactate concentration and higher SOFA score than those with NSS. Increased SOFA score is a predictor for the development of OSS.