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Treatment
Intensive insulin treatment reduced mortality and morbidity in critically ill patients

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.5.2.53

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    Van den Berghe G, Wouters P, Weekers F, et al. Intensive insulin therapy in critically ill patients.N Engl J Med2001 Nov 8;345:1359–67OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

    QUESTION: In patients who are critically ill, does normalisation of blood glucose concentrations with intensive insulin treatment reduce mortality and morbidity?

    Design

    Randomised (allocation concealed), blinded (patients, outcome assessors), controlled trial {with mean follow up of 23 days}*.

    Setting

    Surgical intensive care unit (ICU) at the university hospital in Leuven, Belgium.

    Patients

    1548 patients (mean age 63 y, 71% men) admitted to the ICU who were receiving mechanical ventilation. Patients were excluded if they were participating in other trials, were moribund, or had “do not resuscitate” orders. Follow up was 100%.

    Intervention

    Patients were assigned to receive intensive (n=765) or conventional (n=783) insulin treatment. Intensive treatment was insulin infusion that was started if the blood glucose concentration was > 6.1 mmol/l, and was …

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    Footnotes

    • Sources of funding: University of Leuven; Belgian Fund for Scientific Research; Belgian Foundation for Research in Congenital Heart Disease; and Novo Nordisk.

    • For correspondence: Dr G Van den Berghe, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. greta.vandenberghe{at}med.kuleuven.ac.be

    • A modified version of this abstract appears in ACP Journal Club.

    • ↵* Information provided by author.