Letter

Evidence-lost to tight glycemic control?

Marcus J Schultz^1,2,3 , Peter E Spronk^1,3,4 , Ameen Abu-Hanna⁵ , Bekele Afessa^6,7 and Ognjen Gajic^6,7

¹Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

²Laboratory of Experimental Intensive Care and Anesthesiology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

³HERMES Critical Care Group, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

⁴Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Gelre Hospital – Location Lukas, Albert Schweitzerlaan 31, 7334 DZ Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

⁵Department of Medical Informatics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

⁶Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, First Street 200 Rochester, Minnesota, MN 55905 USA

⁷Mayo Epidemiology and Translational Research in Intensive Care, Mayo Clinic, First Street 200 Rochester, Minnesota, MN 55905 USA

author email corresponding author email

Critical Care 2008, 12:430doi:10.1186/cc7022

See related research by De la Rosa et al., http://ccforum.com/content/12/5/R120

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://ccforum.com/content/12/5/430

Published:

20 October 2008

© 2008 BioMed Central Ltd

Letter

In recent years, the field of intensive care medicine has had the benefit of learning from two randomized controlled trials that tight glycemic control (TGC) is beneficial to critically ill patients [1,2]. No benefit was found by two other clinical trials, however, hampering implementation of TGC in daily practice [3,4]. The question arises of whether the intensive care community interprets the results of these later trials in the correct way. What are the alternative explanations for why two trials do show beneficial effects while two other trials do not, apart from the possibility that TGC may indeed not benefit critically ill patients?

The authors of the recently published trial recognize several shortcomings of their study [4]. Indeed, De la Rosa and colleagues observed a large variability of blood glucose levels in their study. This study may therefore simply have been under-powered to show any beneficial effect of TGC. Apart from this concern, two issues pertain to the comparability of the studies.

First, the delay in recruitment, much longer than in the original studies [1,2], may also explain their findings as it is possible that any benefit of TGC can be accrued only early on.

Second, we would like to identify the crucial issue of the insulin dosing in the control group. An increasing number of patients in the control groups of the first three trials were receiving insulin, from 39% in the first trial [1] to 70% and 74% in the second trial and third trial, respectively [2,3]. This difference may explain the decrease in relative benefit of TGC with each consecutive trial: while the first trial showed a mortality reduction with TGC in all patients [1], improved survival was only found in patients with a prolonged length of stay in the second trial [2], while no beneficial effect at all was seen in the last trial [3]. In the recently published trial of De la Rosa and colleagues, 47% of patients in the control group received insulin [4]. This finding not only illustrates nicely that (some sort of) glycemic control already found its way into daily care during conduct of the newer studies, but may also have diluted the beneficial effect of TGC.

If we agree that evidence-based medicine seeks to apply judgments about the quality of evidence, the evidence that derives from confirmation trials should be properly judged too, as in the initial studies – otherwise we may gamble the real evidence, with a potential setback in the quality of care.

Abbreviations

TGC: tight glycemic control.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

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   N Engl J Med 2001, 345:1359-1367. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text

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4. De la Rosa GD, Donado JH, Restrepo AH, Quintero AM, Gonzalez LG, Saldarriaga NE, Bedoya MT, Toro JM, Velasquez JB, Valencia JC, Arango CM, Aleman PH, Vasquez EM, Chavarriaga JC, Yepes A, Pulido W, Cadavid CA: Strict glycemic control in patients hospitalised in a mixed medical and surgical intensive care unit: a randomized clinical trial.

   Crit Care 2008, 12:R120. PubMed Abstract | BioMed Central Full Text

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