TITLE:
Magnesium levels among critically ill elderly patients; mortality and morbidity correlation
AUTHORS:
Salma M. S. El Said, Walaa W. Aly
KEYWORDS:
Magnesium; Critical Care; Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score; Mortality
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Aging Research,
Vol.3 No.1,
February
6,
2014
ABSTRACT: Objectives: To evaluate the
association between magnesium levels, morbidity and mortality in critically ill
elderly patients admitted in ICU. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done on patients admitted to the
intensive care unit (ICU) of the Geriatrics department at a University Hospital
over 1.5 years period. Data collected included patients demographics and
medical history, length of stay in the ICU. Lab tests included serum
Magnesium on admission, serum sodium and potassium. In addition, the Acute
Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score and the Sequential
Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score were determined at the day of admission. Results: A single center, cross sectional study was done on 100
patients who were admitted to the Geriatrics medical ICU at Ain Shams
university Hospital in Cairo. At admission 23% of patients had low magnesium
(Mg) level and 59% had normal magnesium level and 18% had high Mg level. The
mean age of patients with hypomagnesaemia
was 71.69 years old while those with normal magnesium level were 69.5
years old and that with hypermagnesaemia were 69.7 years old. The length of ICU
stay was longer among patients with high Mg level (11.7 ± 14.4 days) and among
those with normal magnesium level (7.6 ± 5.8 days) versus (7.5 ± 3.8 days)
those with low Mg level, among the studied groups (55.6%) of patients with Hypermagnesaemia
died versus (44.1%) of patients with normal Mg
level. Among the studied groups, those with high Mg level were found to
have higher APACHE II score (20.7 ± 7.4) and SOFA score (5.5 ± 3.6) than the
other subjects. Significant positive correlation was found between mean Mg
level and SOFA score. Conclusion: Development of hypermagnesaemia
during an ICU stay is associated with bad prognosis. Monitoring of serum
magnesium levels may have prognostic, and perhaps therapeutic, implications.