Pulmonary Infection Is an Independent Risk Factor for Long-Term Mortality and Quality of Life for Sepsis Patients

Background. Long-term outcomes (mortality and health-related quality of life) of sepsis have risen as important indicators for health care. Pulmonary infection and abdominal infection are the leading causes of sepsis. However, few researches about long-term outcomes focused on the origin of sepsis. Here we aim to study the clinical differences between pulmonary-sepsis and abdominal-sepsis and to investigate whether different infection foci were associated with long-term outcomes. Methods. Patients who survived after hospital discharge were followed up by telephone interview. Quality of life (QoL) was assessed using the EuroQol 5-dimension (EQ5D) questionnaire. Results. Four hundred and eighty-three sepsis patients were included, 272 (56.3%) had pulmonary-sepsis, and 180 (37.3%) had abdominal-sepsis. The overall ICU and one-year mortality rates of the cohort were 17.8% and 36.1%, respectively. Compared with abdominal-sepsis, pulmonary-sepsis patients had older age, higher APACHE II, higher ICU mortality (31.7% versus 12.6%), and one-year mortality (45.4% versus 24.4%), together with worse QoL. Age, septic shock, acute renal failure, fungus infection, anion gap, and pulmonary infection were predictors for one-year mortality and pulmonary infection was a risk factor for poor QoL. Conclusions. Pulmonary-sepsis showed worse outcome than abdominal-sepsis. Pulmonary infection is a risk factor for one-year mortality and QoL after sepsis.