Table 3.
Secondary clinical outcomes
| Unadjusted | PS matched | PS weighted | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Erythromycin (n = 235) | Controls (n = 470) | P value | Erythromycin (n = 211) | Controls (n = 211) | P value | Erythromycin | Controls | P value | |
| 30-day mortality | 60 (25.9) | 117 (25.4) | 0.93 | 54 (26.0) | 56 (27.3) | 0.91 | 27.7 | 25.9 | 0.67 |
| ICU length of stay, days | 8 [5, 14] | 7 [4, 11] | < 0.001 | 8 [5, 13] | 8 [5, 13] | 0.51 | 7 [5, 13] | 7 [4, 11] | 0.06 |
| Hospital length of stay, days | 23 [13, 40] | 19 [11, 36] | 0.031 | 22 [12, 37.5] | 21 [12, 39] | 0.61 | 21 [10, 37] | 20 [11, 37] | 0.69 |
| Duration of mechanical ventilation, days* | 6 [4, 11] | 5 [3, 9] | 0.001 | 6 [4, 11] | 6 [3, 10] | 0.48 | 6 [4, 10] | 5 [3, 9] | 0.11 |
| ΔSOFA day 4† | −1.5 (2.9) | −1.2 (2.6) | 0.35 | −1.5 (2.9) | −1.6 (2.7) | 0.79 | −1.3 (2.8) | −1.4 (2.7) | 0.75 |
| Incidence of ICU-acquired infections | 42 (17.9) | 51 (10.9) | 0.013 | 35 (16.6) | 32 (15.2) | 0.79 | 13.8 | 12.0 | 0.51 |
| Incidence of ICU-acquired AKI | 17 (7.2) | 24 (5.1) | 0.31 | 16 (7.6) | 15 (7.1) | > 0.99 | 6.4 | 5.5 | 0.66 |
| Incidence of ICU-acquired ARDS | 9 (3.8) | 19 (4.0) | > 0.99 | 8 (3.8) | 13 (6.2) | 0.38 | 3.3 | 4.6 | 0.43 |
AKI acute kidney injury, ARDS acute respiratory distress syndrome, ICU intensive care unit, PS propensity score, ΔSOFA change in modified sequential organ failure assessment score (excluding the neurological component) from admission to day 2, 3 or 4
Categorical data are displayed as count (percentage) or and compared using Fisher's exact test (unadjusted) or McNemar's test (after PS matching), or displayed as percentage and compared using a Chi-square test‡ (after PS weighting)
Normally distributed continuous data are displayed as mean (standard deviation) and compared using a t-test (unadjusted), a paired t-test (after PS matching) or a t-test‡ (after PS weighting)
Non-normally distributed continuous data are displayed as median [interquartile range] and compared using Wilcoxon's rank-sum test (unadjusted), Wilcoxon's signed-rank test or Wilcoxon rank-sum test‡ (after PS weighting)
*In those who were mechanically ventilated at ICU admission: 225/235 (96.6%) in the erythromycin group, 419/470 (89.3%) in the control group (in the unadjusted population)
†Missing in 21/235 (8.9%) in the erythromycin group and 102/470 (21.7%) in the control group, see Additional file 1: Methods and Additional file 1: Table 3 for details
‡For weighted samples, as provided in the survey R package