Sepsis-Associated Coagulopathy Severity Predicts Hospital Mortality*

Objectives: To assess whether sepsis-associated coagulopathy predicts hospital mortality. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: One-thousand three-hundred beds urban academic medical center. Patients: Six-thousand one-hundred forty-eight consecutive patients hospitalized between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2015. Interventions: Mild sepsis-associated coagulopathy was defined as an international normalized ratio greater than or equal to 1.2 and less than 1.4 plus platelet count less than or equal to 150,000/µL but greater than 100,000/µL; moderate sepsis-associated coagulopathy was defined with either an international normalized ratio greater than or equal to 1.4 but less than 1.6 or platelets less than or equal to 100,000/µL but greater than 80,000/µL; severe sepsis-associated coagulopathy was defined as an international normalized ratio greater than or equal to 1.6 and platelets less than or equal to 80,000/µL. Measurements and Main Results: Hospital mortality increased progressively from 25.4% in patients without sepsis-associated coagulopathy to 56.1% in patients with severe sepsis-associated coagulopathy. Similarly, duration of hospitalization and ICU care increased progressively as sepsis-associated coagulopathy severity increased. Multivariable analyses showed that the presence of sepsis-associated coagulopathy, as well as sepsis-associated coagulopathy severity, was independently associated with hospital mortality regardless of adjustments made for baseline patient characteristics, hospitalization variables, and the sepsis-associated coagulopathy-cancer interaction. Odds ratios ranged from 1.33 to 2.14 for the presence of sepsis-associated coagulopathy and from 1.18 to 1.51 for sepsis-associated coagulopathy severity for predicting hospital mortality ( p < 0.001 for all comparisons). Conclusions: The presence of sepsis-associated coagulopathy identifies a group of patients with sepsis at higher risk for mortality. Furthermore, there is an incremental risk of mortality as the severity of sepsis-associated coagulopathy increases.