Table 2.
Demographic and clinical characteristics compared for patients with in-hospital death and patients who survived the first hospital admission
| Variables | In-hospital death | Survival | P values for available cultures | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All (N = 50) | Cultures available (n = 31) | All (N = 179) | Cultures available (n = 127) | ||
| Age (years), median (IQR) | 73 (68–77) | 74 (67–78) | 66 (55–73) | 64 (55–75) | 0.004 |
| Male | 21 (42%) | 15 (48%) | 88 (49%) | 62 (49%) | 0.966 |
| Major comorbidity present, no. (%) | 31 (62%) | 17 (55%) | 105 (59%) | 75 (59%) | 0.670 |
| Malignancy | 11 (22%) | 6 (19%) | 46 (26%) | 33 (26%) | 0.443 |
| Cardiovascular disease | 9 (18%) | 7 (23%) | 45 (25%) | 35 (28%) | 0.574 |
| Respiratory disease (COPD) | 14 (28%) | 7 (23%) | 17 (9%) | 10 (8%) | 0.018 |
| Renal disease | 8 (16%) | 0 (0%) | 9 (5%) | 1 (1%) | 0.009 |
| Diabetes | 2 (4%) | 1 (3%) | 18 (10%) | 13 (10%) | 0.218 |
| Severity of disease | |||||
| APACHE II score at study entry, median (IQR) | 19 (16–24) | 20 (16–24) | 14 (12–17) | 14 (12–17) | <0.001 |
| Etiology of peritonitis, no. (%) | 0.029 | ||||
| Perforation | 34 (68%) | 25 (81%) | 99 (55%) | 69 (54%) | |
| Anastomotic leakage | 7 (14%) | 2 (6%) | 56 (31%) | 40 (31%) | |
| Ischemia | 6 (12%) | 3 (10%) | 8 (4%) | 7 (6%) | |
| Inflammation | 1 (2%) | 0 (0%) | 8 (4%) | 5 (4%) | |
| Othera | 2 (4%) | 1 (3%) | 8 (4%) | 6 (5%) | |
| Nosocomial (postoperative) peritonitis | 14 (28%) | 4 (13%) | 94 (53%) | 66 (52%) | <0.001 |
| Localization | 0.500 | ||||
| Upper GI tract (incl small bowel) | 15 (30%) | 10 (32%) | 43 (24%) | 28 (22%) | |
| Lower GI tract | 34 (68%) | 20 (65%) | 117 (65%) | 81 (64%) | |
| Biliary tract | 1 (2%) | 1 (3%) | 13 (7%) | 9 (7%) | |
| Otherb | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 6 (3%) | 6 (5%) | |
| Type of contamination | 0.697 | ||||
| Clear | 5 (10%) | 1 (3%) | 9 (5%) | 4 (3%) | |
| Turbid/cloudy | 9 (18%) | 7 (23%) | 38 (21%) | 27 (21%) | |
| Purulent | 17 (34%) | 10 (32%) | 58 (32%) | 43 (34%) | |
| Fecal | 17 (34%) | 11 (35%) | 69 (39%) | 49 (39%) | |
| Bile | 2 (4%) | 2 (6%) | 5 (3%) | 4 (3%) | |
a‘Other’ consisted of 8x no evident infectious focus in contaminated abdomen, 1x bile leakage, 1x infected haematoma
b‘Other’ consisted of either an infectious focus localized at the upper as well as the lower GI tract or at a gynecologic site
All continuous data are analyzed with the Mann Whitney-U test
All categorical data are analyzed with the Chi square test
IQR interquartile range