Estudio ECAIS: eventos cardiovasculares adversos inadvertidos en sepsis

objective: to describe the incidence of cardiovascular adverse events in patients with sepsis in its various stages. design: a longitudinal, descriptive, observational study was carried out. setting: intensive care units of two university hospitals in bogotá (colombia). patients: a number of patients consecutively admitted to the adult icu with a diagnosis of sepsis, and no evidence of previous ischemic myocardial injury. interventions: forty-eight hours of electrocardiographic record using holter technology. main variables: ischemia, cardiac arrhythmia, heart rate variability. results: a total of 100 patients were analyzed, 62% being staged as presenting septic shock. three percent suffered ischemic events detected by holter and unnoticed through conventional monitoring. forty-six percent suffered an arrhythmic event detected by holter, compared with only 6% as detected by conventional monitoring. mortality was 40%. all patients showed loss of heart rate variability. conclusion: in this study patients with sepsis showed a low incidence of cardiovascular ischemic events. in contrast, arrhythmic events showed a high incidence. conventional monitoring failed to detect any of the ischemic events and most arrhythmic events. in this study, cardiovascular events generated by adrenergic discharge had no impact upon mortality.