Prognostic Significance of Diastolic Dysfunction in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients With Sepsis and Septic Shock: Insights From a Longitudinal Tertiary Care Study

Background: Sepsis is one of the leading contributors to global mortality and morbidity, causing multi-organ failure, mainly involving cardiovascular failure, both systolic and diastolic dysfunction, leading to adverse clinical outcomes. There is little clinical data on the correlation with the mortality of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with sepsis and septic shock and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Our study sought to assess whether the severity of diastolic dysfunction could predict 28-day mortality. Methodology: The study included T2DM patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with sepsis and septic shock defined according to the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock at a tertiary care center in northern India. A total of 132 patients (age = 61.01 ± 13.12 years; 62% male; mean APACHE II (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II) score = 25.74 ± 4.79; Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score = 12.34 ± 3.36) underwent transthoracic echocardiography within two hours of ICU admission till 28 days of admission or till mortality occurred. Clinical variables (APACHE II and SOFA score) and cardiac biomarkers, such as N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP), troponin I, and creatine phosphokinase-MB, were measured at the time of admission and after 72 hours to compare with mortality. Diastolic dysfunction was defined according to the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) 2009 guidelines, classifying subjects into grade 0 (normal), if early diastolic velocity (e') ≥ 8 cm/s; grade 1 (impaired relaxation), if e' < 8 cm/s and early (E) to late (A) ventricular filling velocities (E/A) ratio < 0.8; grade 2 (pseudo normal), if e' < 8 cm/s, E/A = 0.8-1.5, and peak E-wave velocity by the peak e' velocity (E/e') ratio = 9-12; and grade 3 (restrictive), if e' < 8 cm/s, E/A > 2, deceleration time (DT) < 160 ms, and E/e' ≥ 13. Results: Thirty-seven (40.65%) out of 132 patients had diastolic dysfunction on initial echocardiography, while 54 (59.34%) had diastolic dysfunction on at least subsequent echocardiography. Total mortality was 68.93% with the highest mortality (100%) observed among those with grade 3 diastolic dysfunction. The 28-day mortality with diastolic dysfunction in sepsis and septic shock patients showed significant results (p < 0.001), indicating that with a higher E/A ratio or higher grade of diastolic dysfunction with the increase in SOFA score, the early ICU mortality is the highest and have the shortest duration of ICU stay with mean ± SD = 6.2 ± 2.48, as compared to other grades with 100% mortality. Also, the cardiac biomarker NT-pro-BNP was markedly elevated with a mean ± SD value of 503 ± 269.3 pg/ml, indicating early predicted mortality. No correlation was detected between mortality and the mean levels of fasting blood sugar, postprandial blood sugar, and glycosylated hemoglobin. Conclusion: Our study concluded that diastolic dysfunction is an important and strongest independent mortality predictor in patients with T2DM with severe sepsis and septic shock, and the higher the grade of diastolic dysfunction, the higher the mortality with the lowest mean ICU stay.