Association Between Preadmission Metformin Use and Outcomes in Intensive Care Unit Patients With Sepsis and Type 2 Diabetes: A Cohort Study

Background: Sepsis is a deadly disease worldwide. Effective treatment strategy of sepsis remains limited. There still was a controversial about association between preadmission metformin use and mortality in sepsis patients with diabetes. We aimed to assess sepsis-related mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) who were preadmission metformin and non-metformin users. Methods: The patients with sepsis and T2DM were included from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care -III database. Outcome was 30-day mortality. We used multivariable Cox regression analyses to calculate adjusted hazard ratio (HR) with 95% CI. Results: We included 2,383 sepsis patients with T2DM (476 and 1,907 patients were preadmission metformin and non-metformin uses) between 2001 and 2012. The overall 30-day mortality was 20.1% (480/2,383); it was 21.9% (418/1,907), and 13.0% (62/476) for non-metformin and metformin users, respectively. After adjusted for potential confounders, we found that preadmission metformin use was associated with 39% lower of 30-day mortality (HR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.46-0.81, p = 0.007). In sensitivity analyses, subgroups analyses, and propensity score matching, the results remain stable. Conclusions: Preadmission metformin use may be associated with reduced risk-adjusted mortality in patients with sepsis and T2DM. It is worthy to further investigate this association.

Automated summary

The study suggests that preadmission metformin use may be associated with reduced risk-adjusted mortality in patients with sepsis and T2DM. Non-metformin users had a higher 30-day mortality rate compared to metformin users. The results remained stable in sensitivity analyses, subgroups analyses, and propensity score matching.