Failure to achieve euglycemia despite aggressive insulin control signals abnormal physiologic response to trauma.

PURPOSE: We hypothesize that a failure to normalize a patient's glucose on an automated euglycemia protocol signals an adverse response after trauma and that this response can identify patients with an increased mortality.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: There were 1246 ventilated, critically ill trauma patients who were placed on an automated euglycemia. All glucose values collected both by laboratory serum measurements and by bedside arterial samples were included in the analysis.
RESULTS: Forty six thousand two hundred eighteen data entries for glucose (mg/dL) were analyzed. Time to normalization, defined as the first value in the goal range of 80 to 110 mg/dL, was different between the 2 groups, survivors correcting significantly faster (396 vs 487 minutes; P = .003). Mortality in patients who normalized (80-110 mg/dL) in the first 6 hours of admission was 13.6% vs 18.3% in patients requiring greater than 6 hours (P = .02). Patients who never normalized also required significantly greater insulin doses despite there being no significant difference in demographic data between the 2 groups.
CONCLUSIONS: A posttraumatic patient's response to tight glycemic control revealed important prognostic information about the patients' physiologic status. Patients who failed to reach euglycemia in the first 6 hours of admission had an increased hospital mortality. The time to normalization is significantly longer in those patients who died. Patients who did not correct rapidly required significantly higher insulin doses, suggesting insulin resistance.