The Correlation Between Period of Anemia and Duration of Mechanical Ventilation in Patients Admitted to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit

Anemia is one of the most common conditions encountered critically ill patients. Various mechanisms can put these patients at risk of anemia including gastrointestinal hemorrhage, iron deficiency, inflammation and infection, stress, and multiple blood testing. Anemia can affect cardiopulmonary function as depletion in oxygen content in body. In mechanically ventilated patients, anemia is associated with increased duration of mechanical ventilation, increased length of stay, and possibly increased mortality. Some research suggested that hemoglobin level <8.5 g/dl was a potential risk factor for adverse outcome in critically ill patients required mechanical ventilation >96 hr. However, most researches focused on hemoglobin levels and the associated adverse events in mechanically ventilated patients. To the best of our knowledge, there are few studies reported the impact of the duration of anemia and the clinical outcomes in these patients. We hypothesize that the short duration of anemia developed in mechanically ventilated patients has no effect on duration of mechanical ventilation. We, therefore, aim to investigate the impact of the duration of anemia on duration of mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients required ventilatory support >96 hours.