Norepinephrine use at extubation in critically ill patients with obesity: a cohort study with multicenter validation.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to assess whether norepinephrine at the time of extubation increases reintubation rates in critically ill patients with obesity. METHODS The initial step was to analyze data that had been collected prospectively, using a retrospective approach-defined as the main cohort. Then, we validated our findings using data from a multicenter randomized-controlled trial (validation cohort). The primary objective was to compare reintubation within 7 days, between patients with norepinephrine and without norepinephrine at the time of extubation. The secondary objective was to assess norepinephrine doses at extubation, normalized to body weight. RESULTS Among the 3186 patients included in the main cohort, 837 had obesity. Among them, 213 (25%) were extubated with norepinephrine, with a median norepinephrine dose at extubation of 0.6 mg/h of absolute value which corresponds to 0.097 (0.04-0.17) µg/kg/min of real body weight. No significant difference in reintubation rates was observed between patients extubated with norepinephrine (16%) and those without (17%, p = 0.85). Among the 656 patients with obesity in the validation cohort, we observed similar results, with a reintubation rate of 18% in those extubated with norepinephrine and 15% in those without (p = 0.45). Similar results were observed in the 2349 patients without obesity. INTERPRETATION In critically ill patients with obesity, the use of norepinephrine at the time of extubation did not significantly increase the reintubation rates. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NCT04014920 for the validation cohort.