Validation of SCAI Shock Staging in Critically Ill Medical Intensive Care Unit Patients With Sepsis and Septic Shock.

Purpose: This study evaluated the predictive value of SCAI shock staging for mortality in patients with sepsis and septic shock admitted to the medical ICU.

Materials and methods: This is a single-center historical cohort study. We analyzed data for adults (≥18-year-old) admitted to the medical ICU at Mayo Clinic St. Mary's campus with sepsis between June 1, 2018, and December 31, 2021. Sepsis was identified using the Sepsis-III criteria. Patients were stratified based on SCAI shock staging. Our primary outcome was all-cause 30-day mortality.

Results: We identified 3079 eligible adult patients with sepsis or septic shock. The distribution of SCAI shock stages A through E was 9%, 12%, 25%, 49%, and 5%, respectively. The overall 30-day mortality was 24%. There was progression in all outcomes including ICU, hospital and 30-day mortality across SCAI shock stages. However, only SCAI shock stages D and E, had statistically significant adjusted HRs of 1.6 and 3, respectively. When compared to SOFA score, SCAI shock staging performed similarly in predicting ICU mortality with no statistically significant difference in AUCs, p-value of 0.07.

Conclusions: Our results support the use of SCAI shock staging in critically ill medical patients with sepsis and septic shock for risk stratification. We propose that the SCAI shock staging may be used as a universal system for grading the severity of shock in critically ill patients regardless of etiology.