'Relation, association, attribution ...' – the multiple faces of death in critical care medicine

doi:10.1186/cc7789

Critical Care

Volume 13
Issue 2

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Commentary

'Relation, association, attribution ...' – the multiple faces of death in critical care medicine

Susanne Toussaint and Herwig Gerlach

Department of Anesthesia, Intensive Care Medicine, and Pain Management, Vivantes – Klinikum Neukölln, Rudower Strasse 48, D-12313 Berlin, Germany

author email corresponding author email

Critical Care 2009, 13:138doi:10.1186/cc7789


Published:	29 April 2009

See related research by Melamed and Sorvillo, http://ccforum.com/content/13/1/R28

Abstract

Mortality is one of the most important quality markers in critical care, and there have been many epidemiological studies trying to identify risk factors to better understand the mechanisms leading to death in this complex disease. One of the major problems is that there are multiple factors contributing to fatal outcome of septic patients, and it is difficult to distinguish between those that are independent from the acute disease (comorbidities and 'risk factors') and those that are directly involved in the pathomechanisms of sepsis, thus leading to the 'sepsis-attributable' mortality. In this short commentary, some examples of different approaches of how to analyze data on mortality are presented.