BACKGROUND: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) mortality exceeds 20 % in critical care patients despite appropriate antibiotic therapy. Regional tissue oxygen saturation index (rSO2) measured with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) might facilitate early detection for patients at risk of serious complications. Our objectives were to determine the relationship between early determination of rSO2 and mortality and to compare discrimination power for mortality of rSO2 and other resuscitation variables in critically ill CAP patients. METHODS: This is a prospective observational study. Patients with CAP were enrolled within 6 h to intensive care admission. Demographics and clinical variables were recorded. rSO2 was determined using NIRS in brachioradialis muscle. All variables were determined at baseline and 24 h after admission. RESULTS: Forty patients were enrolled. Fourteen patients (35 %) had a baseline rSO2 < 60 % and 7 of them died (50 %). Only 1 of 26 (3.8 %) patients with rSO2 ≥ 60 % died (p = 0.007). The area under ROC curve (AUROC) showed consistent mortality discrimination at baseline (0.84, p = 0.03) and at 24 h (0.86, p = 0.006) for rSO2 values. Cox regression analysis showed that "low" rSO2 at ICU admission (hazard ratio (HR) = 8.99; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.05-76.8; p = 0.045) and "low" rSO2 at 24 h (HR = 13.18; 95 % CI 1.52-113.6; p = 0.019) were variables independently associated with mortality. In contrast, other variables such as Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE II) score (HR = 1.09; 95 % CI 0.99-1.19; p = 0.052) were not associated with mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that forearm skeletal muscle rSO2 differs in patients with severe CAP according to outcome and might be an early prognosis tool.

This study was partially supported by grants from the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS PI10/01538, PI13/02011) and SGR2013/0926