Application of high dose intravenous vitamin C in critical cared diseases

Abstract

Vitamin C is an essential micronutrient for human and its deficiency will lead to scurvy. In recent years, as a new therapeutic strategy, high dose intravenous vitamin C(HDIVC) has been widely studied in critical cared diseases. In this review, we summarized the progress of HDIVC in sepsis, including its research history, rationality of usage, controversy and prospect, problems and outlook. The application of HDIVC in critical cared diseases underwent three periods: early, preheating and outbreaking period. Given the reduction of vitamin C in critical diseases, it requires rapid intravenous supplementation. We confirmed the therapeutic efficacy of HDIVC in COVID-19 and severe acute pancreatitis respectively. It is well known that HDIVC has effect of suppressing inflammatory responses, stabilizing the circulation and improving the immunity. But the application of HDIVC in critical cared diseases is still controversial, for the opposing findings in multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials. Future studies should be better to pay further attention on the dose and time of vitamin C and vitamin C plasma concentration monitoring.

Keywords

• |vitamin c|high dose intravenous vitamin c(hdivc)|critical cared disease