Abstract
Background & Objectives: It is generally believed that significant delay in administering antibiotics in severely septic patients and those with septic shock increases mortality. However, most studies were retrospective and/or of questionable design. Moreover, the starting times from which delays were measured varied and often seemed somewhat amorphous. We assessed the duration of time between antibiotics being ordered and first administered among patients with newly diagnosed septic shock in a Saudi intensive care unit (ICU), and its effects on 30-day mortality and the rate of major complications. We also sought to identify any time threshold at which the mortality rate clearly increased.
Methodology: Data were prospectively collected on 96 patients >= 14-years-old (male/female = 49%; mean age 62.1 y) admitted to our ICU and followed for >= 30 days, or until hospital discharge or death. The time between ordering and administering the first dose of antibiotics after diagnosis of septic shock was recorded and its impact upon survival and major complications analyzed.
Results: Fifty of 96 patients died within the ICU. Unexpectedly, mortality rate declined steadily between < one min (60%) and 5 h delay (44%), but rose sharply beyond five hours (p < 0.001). Time delay did not significantly influence the rate of any major complication other than death.
Conclusions: Our results call into question recent conclusions that delays administering antibiotics beyond one to two hours result in significantly increased mortality. Further prospective, large scale studies are necessary to clarify this issue.