Proliferation and differentiation of adipose tissue in prolonged lean and obese critically ill patients

Intensive Care Medicine Experimental

Table 1 Baseline and outcome characteristics of matched critically ill patients of whom postmortem subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue biopsies were studied

	Lean critically ill (N = 24)	Overweight/obese critically ill (N = 24)	p value^d	Healthy reference (N = 20)	p value^e
Baseline characteristics
Gender (n, % male)	17 (71)	14 (58)	0.5	14 (70)	0.7
Age, years (mean ± SEM)	68.4 ± 2.8	68.8 ± 2.8	0.5	70 ± 2.6	0.6
BMI, kg/m² (mean ± SEM)	22.5 ± 0.4	27.7 ± 0.3	<0.0001	24.9 ± 2.6	0.8
Diabetes mellitus (n, %)	4 (17)	3 (12)	1	3 (15)	1
Malignancy (n, %)	9 (37)	9 (37)	0.2
APACHE II score (mean ± SEM)	25 ± 2	26 ± 2	0.5
Diagnostic admission category (n)			0.3
Cardiac surgery	1	1
Complicated surgery^a	1	5
Multiple trauma or burns	0	1
Hematologic or oncologic	4	5
Respiratory	12	7
Other disease exacerbations^b	4	4
Other sepsis	2	1
Randomization to intensive insulin therapy (n, %)	10 (42)	11 (46)	1
Received steroid therapy (n, %)	17 (73)	18 (85)	0.4
Outcome
ICU stay (median (IQR))^c	10 (7-20)	10 (6-17)	0.2
Cause of death (n)			0.5
Cardiac/hypovolemic shock	4	4
Multiple organ failure	8	12
Respiratory failure	8	7
Septic shock/therapy resistance	3	1
Severe brain damage	1	0

SEM standard error of the mean, BMI body mass index, IQR interquartile range, ICU intensive care unit
^aComplicated surgery indicates patients suffering from complications after abdominal or pelvic surgery, pulmonary or esophageal surgery, or vascular surgery
^bCardiovascular disease, gastroenterologic or hepatic disease, neurologic disease
^cPostmortem biopsies were collected minutes after death in the ICU. ICU stay thus reflects day of biopsy
^dComparison between lean and overweight/obese critically ill patients
^eComparison between critically ill patients and healthy references