Short-term outcome among patients with leukemia and lymphoma admitted to a medical intensive care unit.

We report here the short-term outcome of medical intensive care unit (MICU) admissions of patients with leukemia or lymphoma. We reviewed the charts of 29 such patients. Of 21 patients with acute leukemia admitted to the MICU, seven survived to leave the hospital; of eight patients with lymphoma, two survived to leave the hospital. The acute physiologic score (APS) (a system in which 0 to 4 points are given for the degree of deviation from normal for several organ systems) was used to score each patient on day 1 of their MICU stay. The APS for all patients with leukemia and lymphoma admitted to MICU was 28 +/- 11. The mortality was 69%, which is not significantly different from the predicted mortality of 56% for patients with the same APS but no underlying malignant disease. Among the survivors, young age and early stage of disease were predictors of favorable outcome.