PLoS ONE (Jan 2022)

Performance of NUTRIC score to predict 28-day mortality in critically ill patients after replacing APACHE II with SAPS 3.

  • Ivens Augusto Oliveira Souza,
  • Paulo Cesar Ribeiro,
  • Joop Jonckheer,
  • Elisabeth De Waele,
  • Leandro Utino Taniguchi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270455
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 7
p. e0270455

Abstract

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ObjectivesThe Nutrition Risk in the Critically Ill (NUTRIC) score has been advocated as a screening tool for nutrition risk assessment in critically ill patients. It was developed and validated to predict 28-day mortality using Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score as one of its components. However, nowadays the Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 (SAPS 3) demonstrates better performance. We aimed to test the performance of NUTRIC score in predicting 28-day mortality after replacement of APACHE II by SAPS 3, and the interaction between nutrition adequacy and mortality.MethodsAdult patients who received nutrition therapy and remained >3 days in intensive care unit were retrospectively evaluated. In order to replace APACHE II component, we used ranges of SAPS 3 with similar predicted mortality. Discrimination between these tools in predicting 28-day mortality was assessed using the ROC curve, calibration was evaluated with calibration belt, and correlation with intraclass correlation. The relationship between nutritional adequacy and mortality was assessed in a subgroup with available data.Results542 patients were analyzed (median age of 78 years old, 73.4% admitted for non-surgical reasons and 28-day mortality was 18.1%). Mortality prediction discrimination did not differ between tools (p>0.05), but showed a good agreement (intraclass correlation 0.86) with good calibration. In the subgroup analysis for nutritional adequacy (n = 99), no association with mortality was observed.ConclusionPerformance of NUTRIC score with SAPS 3 is similar to the original tool. Therefore, it might be used in settings where APACHE II is not available.