European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: This study was conducted to test early resuscitation, targeting lactate levels as the marker of adequacy of oxygen delivery, compare the return of normal ScvO2 in predicting 7th day mortality, and compare the clearance of serum lactate (at least 10%) in predicting 7th day mortality. Methods: This was a hospital-based randomized prospective study conducted among 120 adult patients admitted to the medical ICU with septic shock at Rajarajeswari Medical College and Hospital from November 2015 to August 2017 after obtaining clearance from the institutional ethics committee and written informed consent from the study participants.  Results: 7th day mortality was 21.7% in group L and 33.3% in group S, the p-value was 0.152 which was not clinically significant between both groups. But lactate clearance in group L at 24 hours was 57.50±25.82 and at 72 hours was 76.87±14.80 which was clinically strongly significant and ScvO2 at mortality was around 70.6% but still there was a mortality of 33.3% on 7th day, which is higher compared to the lactate group. Conclusion: Goal-directed therapy provided at the initial stages of severe sepsis and septic shock has significant short term and long-term benefits. We can also say that using lactate as an indicator of sepsis will help in early diagnosis with risk stratification and repeated measurements at regular intervals can assist in the progress of treatment.