Determination of favorable blood glucose target range for stochastic TARgeted (STAR) glycemic control in Malaysia

Stress-induced hyperglycemia is common in critically ill patients, but there is uncertainty about what constitutes an optimal blood glucose target range for glycemic control. Furthermore, to reduce the rate of hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic events, model-based glycemic control protocols have been introduced, such as the stochastic targeted (STAR) glycemic control protocol. This protocol has been used in the intensive care units of Christchurch and Gyulà Hospital since 2010, and in Malaysia since 2017. In this study, we analyzed the adaptability of the protocol and identified the blood glucose target range most favorable for use in the Malaysian population. Virtual simulation results are presented for two clinical cohorts: one receiving treatment by the STAR protocol itself and the other receiving intensive insulin therapy by the sliding scale method. Performance and safety were analyzed using five clinical target ranges, and best control was simulated at a target range of 6.0–10.0 mmol/L. This target range had the best balance of performance, with the lowest risk of hypoglycemia and the lowest requirement for nursing interventions. The result is encouraging as the STAR protocol is suitable to provide better and safer glycemic control while using a target range that is already widely used in Malaysian intensive care units

Virtual trial of glycaemic control performance and nursing workload assessment in diabetic critically ill patients

Tight glycaemic control in critically ill patients is used to reduce mortality in intensive care units. However, its usage is debatable in reducing hypoglycaemia or accurately maintain normoglycaemia level. This paper presents the assessment for two 'wider' Stochastic TARgeted (STAR) glycemic controllers, namely Controller A (blood glucose (BG) target 4.4-8.0 mmol/L) and Controller B (BG target 4.4-10.0 mmol/L) with 1 to 3 hour nursing interventions. These controllers were assessed to determine the better control on diabetic and non-diabetic patients. 66 diabetic and 66 non-diabetic critically ill patient's data from Hospital Tunku Ampuan Afzan (HTAA) were employed for virtual trial simulations with a clinically validated physiological model. Performance metrics were assessed within the percentage time in band (TIB) of 4.4 to 8.0 mmol/L, 4.4 to 10.0 mmol/L, and 6.0 to 10.0 mmol/L. Controller A shows better performance in normoglycaemic TIB of 4.4 to 10.0 mmol/L where non-diabetic and diabetic patients achieved 92.5% and 83.8% respectively. In conclusion, Controller A is higher in efficiency and safer to be used for both patients cohorts. However, higher clinical interventions in diabetic patients within this control raise the alarm to reduce nursing workload. This is believed to improve clinical interventions burnout and ensure patient's comfortability. © 2018 Authors

Association between Diabetes Mellitus and Sepsis for the Glycemic Control Outcome of Two Intensive Care Units in Malaysia

Close monitoring and tight glycemic control are required among critically ill patients as they have dynamic metabolism which may precipitate stress-induced hyperglycemia. Clinically, diabetes mellitus (DM) patient with sepsis indicated a high mortality rate. This study investigates the association between DM and non-DM related to sepsis and non-sepsis patients from different insulin infusion therapy management. This study used 128 retrospective data from Hospital A, and 37 retrospective data from Hospital B. ICU patients who received insulin infusion therapy during their stay in the ICU were selected. Both centres implement the sliding scale-based insulin infusion therapy with the target range for blood glucose (BG) level within 6.0 – 10.0 mmol/L. The retrospective clinical data were compared among cohorts for DM and non-DM associated with sepsis and non-sepsis conditions. Findings showed that the DM group had higher insulin sensitivity than non-DM for both cohorts. Meanwhile, cohort B had higher insulin sensitivity than cohort A for all classes. Cohort A (DM+Sepsis) had low insulin sensitivity (66.7 L/(mU.min) and worst condition with sepsis which resulted from the lowest percentage (30.81%) of BG measurement within the target range. The (nonDM+nonSepsis) class had the tightest glycemic control for cohort A (3.4 mmol/L) and cohort B (2.2 mmol/L), as observed by the BG interquartile range. Furthermore, cohort A (nonDM+nonSepsis) had a 41.55% of severe hyperglycemia and 0.12% for severe hypoglycemia. Contrary, cohort B (nonDM+nonSepsis) had the highest percentage within the target range (74.31%) and the lowest percentage of hyperglycemia (18.78%). There was significantly different (p-values <0.05) between cohort A and cohort B in BG level and glucose intake, likewise between sepsis and non-sepsis of non-DM for both cohorts. The findings indicate that a successful glycemic control protocol is much influenced by insulin sensitivity, patient variability, diabetes condition, and patient sepsis status

Insulin Sensitivity and Sepsis Score: A Correlation between Model-based Metric and Sepsis Scoring System in Critically Ill Patients

Sepsis is highly correlated with mortality and morbidity. Sepsis is a clinical condition demarcated as the existence of infection and systemic inflammatory response syndrome, SIRS. Confirmation of infection requires a blood culture test, which requires incubation, and thus results take at least 48 h for a syndrome that requires early direct treatment. Since sepsis has a strong inflammatory component, it is hypothesized that metabolic markers affected by inflammation, such as insulin sensitivity, might provide a metric for more rapid, real-time diagnosis. This study uses clinical data from 30 sepsis patients (7624 h in ICU) of whom 60% are male. Median age and median Apache II score are 63 years and 19, respectively. Model-identified insulin sensitivity (SI) profiles were obtained for each patient, and insulin sensitivity and its hourly changes were correlated with modified hourly sepsis scores (SSH1). SI profiles and values were similar across the cohort. The sepsis score is highly variable and changes rapidly. The modified hourly sepsis score, SSH1, shows a better relation with insulin sensitivity due to less fluctuation in the SIRS element. Median SI and median SI of the cohort is 0.4193e-3 and 0.004253e-3 L/mU.min, respectively. Additionally, median SI are 4.392 × 10−4 L/mU min (SSH1 = 0), 4.153 × 10−4 L/mU min (SSH1 = 1), 3.752 × 10−4 L/mU min (SSH1 = 2) and 2.353 × 10−4 L/mU min (SSH1 = 3). Significant relationship between insulin sensitivity across different SSH1 groups was observed (p < 0.05) even when corrected for multiple comparisons. CDF of SI indicates that insulin sensitivity is more significant when comparing an hourly sepsis score at a very distinguished level

Efficacy and Safety of SPRINT and STAR Protocol on Malaysian Critically-ill Patients

Intensive care unit patients may have a better glycaemic management with the right control protocol. Results of virtual trial performance on Malaysian critically-ill patients adopting a model-derived and model-based control protocol known as SPRINT and STAR are presented in this paper. These ICU patients have been treated by intensive sliding-scale insulin infusion. The effectiveness and safety of glycaemic control are then analysed. Results showed that patient safety improved by 83% with SPRINT and STAR protocol as the number of hypoglycaemic patients significantly reduced (BG<;2.2 mmol/L). Percentage of time within desired bands and median BG improves in both SPRINT and STAR. However, the improvements are associated with higher number of BG measurements (workload)

Performance of stochastic targeted blood glucose control protocol by virtual trials in the Malaysian intensive care unit

Background and objective: Blood glucose variability is common in healthcare and it is not related or influ- enced by diabetes mellitus. To minimise the risk of high blood glucose in critically ill patients, Stochastic Targeted Blood Glucose Control Protocol is used in intensive care unit at hospitals worldwide. Thus, this study focuses on the performance of stochastic modelling protocol in comparison to the current blood glucose management protocols in the Malaysian intensive care unit. Also, this study is to assess the ef- fectiveness of Stochastic Targeted Blood Glucose Control Protocol when it is applied to a cohort of diabetic patients. Methods: Retrospective data from 210 patients were obtained from a general hospital in Malaysia from May 2014 until June 2015, where 123 patients were having comorbid diabetes mellitus. The comparison of blood glucose control protocol performance between both protocol simulations was conducted through blood glucose fitted with physiological modelling on top of virtual trial simulations, mean calculation of simulation error and several graphical comparisons using stochastic modelling. Results: Stochastic Targeted Blood Glucose Control Protocol reduces hyperglycaemia by 16% in diabetic and 9% in nondiabetic cohorts. The protocol helps to control blood glucose level in the targeted range of 4.0–10.0 mmol/L for 71.8% in diabetic and 82.7% in nondiabetic cohorts, besides minimising the treatment hour up to 71 h for 123 diabetic patients and 39 h for 87 nondiabetic patients. Conclusion: It is concluded that Stochastic Targeted Blood Glucose Control Protocol is good in reducing hyperglycaemia as compared to the current blood glucose management protocol in the Malaysian inten- sive care unit. Hence, the current Malaysian intensive care unit protocols need to be modified to enhance their performance, especially in the integration of insulin and nutrition intervention in decreasing the hyperglycaemia incidences. Improvement in Stochastic Targeted Blood Glucose Control Protocol in terms of u en model is also a must to adapt with the diabetic cohort

Performance of glycemic control protocol and virtual trial

Model-based glycemic control offers direct management of patient-specific variability and better adaptive control. Implementation of the model-based glycemic control has the potential to reduce hyperglycemia episodes, mortality and morbidity as seen in some successful TGC. The design of any TGC must consider not only the glycemic target range but also safety and efficacy of the insulin therapy. This paper presents the evaluation of glycemic control protocol adapted in the ICU of Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital. Virtual trials method is used to simulate the controller algorithm on a virtual patient with feed variation factor. Data from actual clinical and the virtual trial are compared to analyze the protocol performance concerning blood glucose outcome and insulin efficacy. A stochastic model is also used to indicate metabolic response and metabolic variation of the cohort

Levels and diagnostic value of model-based insulin sensitivity in sepsis: a preliminary study

Background and Aims: Currently, there is a lack of real time metric with high sensitivity and specificity to diagnose sepsis. Insulin sensitivity (SI) may be determined in real time using mathematical glucose insulin models; however, its effectiveness as a diagnostic test of sepsis is unknown. Our aims were to determine the levels and diagnostic value of model based SI for identification of sepsis in critically ill patients. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective, cohort study, we analysed SI levels in septic (n = 18) and nonseptic (n = 20) patients at 1 (baseline), 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 h of their Intensive Care Unit admission. Patients with diabetes mellitus Type I or Type II were excluded from the study. The SI levels were derived by fitting the blood glucose levels, insulin infusion and glucose input rates into the Intensive Control of insulin Nutrition Glucose model. Results: The median SI levels were significantly lower in the sepsis than in the nonsepsis at all follow up time points. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the model based SI at baseline for discriminating sepsis from nonsepsis was 0.814 (95% confidence interval, 0.675–0.953). The optimal cut-off point of the SI test was 1.573 × 10-4 L/mu/min. At this cut-off point, the sensitivity was 77.8%, specificity was 75%, positive predictive value was 73.7%, and negative predictive value was 78.9%. Conclusions: Model based SI ruled in and ruled out sepsis with fairly high sensitivity and specificity in our critically ill nondiabetic patients. These findings can be used as a foundation for further, prospective investigation in this area

Study on the blood glucose management with controlled goal feed in Malaysian critically ill patients

Stress-induced hyperglycaemia is commonly occurred in the intensive care unit (ICU). It is known that the intensive insulin therapy (IIT) has successfully managed the blood glucose level within the targeted band. However, modifications on the current practice need to be considered to minimize the risk of hypoglycaemia and mortality. Thus, the aim of this study is to assess the performance of a new practice known as Stochastic Targeted (STAR) Protocol in managing blood glucose levels in Malaysia ICU setting. STAR is a tabletcomputer based protocols that provides patient-specific glucose control framework accounting for patient variability with a stochastically derived maximum 5% risk of hypoglycaemia events. A retrospective 92 non-diabetes patient’s data who underwent IIT were identified. Patient’s blood glucose levels, exogenous insulin and nutrition inputs including patient demographics were extracted from the ICU charts to create virtual patients by using physiologically mathematical model. Three trials were simulated with controlled goal feed (GF) and without GF. Only one type of nutrition is considered in this study which is Glucerna. The outcomes will be compared in terms of %BG within the targeted band of 4.4 to 10.0 mmol/L, the total number of BG measurements, and the % of severe hypoglycaemia. The results indicate that STAR virtual trial with controlled GF reduced the risk of hypoglycaemia to 3% and the clinical burden up to 1630 hours while maintaining BG within the targeted band. The total number of BG measurements also decreased to 5384 from 7038. Thus, the implementation of STAR protocol in the Malaysia ICU is beneficial and it is proven safe while aiding nurses and physicians in reducing the clinical burden and medical cost in treating stress-induce hyperglycaemia in the demanding ICU setting

Model-based glycemic control in a Malaysian intensive care unit: performance and safety study

Background: Stress-induced hyperglycemia is common in critically ill patients. A few forms of model-based glycemic control have been introduced to reduce this phenomena and among them is the automated STAR protocol which has been used in the Christchurch and Gyulá hospitals’ intensive care units (ICUs) since 2010. Methods: This article presents the pilot trial assessment of STAR protocol which has been implemented in the International Islamic University Malaysia Medical Centre (IIUMMC) Hospital ICU since December 2017. One hundred and forty-two patients who received STAR treatment for more than 20 hours were used in the assessment. The initial results are presented to discuss the ability to adopt and adapt the model-based control framework in a Malaysian environment by analyzing its performance and safety. Results: Overall, 60.7% of blood glucose measurements were in the target band. Only 0.78% and 0.02% of cohort measurements were below 4.0 mmol/L and 2.2 mmol/L (the limitsfor mild and severe hypoglycemia, respectively). Treatment preference-wise, the clinical staff were favorable of longer intervention options when available. However, 1 hourly treatments were still used in 73.7% of cases. Conclusion: The protocol succeeded in achieving patient-specific glycemic control while maintaining safety and was trusted by nurses to reduce workload. Its lower performance results, however, give the indication for modification in some of the control settings to better fit the Malaysian environment. © 2019 Abu-Samah et al