Among the baseline characteristics, categorical variables such as sex, underlying comorbidities, and medications were compared between groups using chi-squared tests. Continuous variables were compared using Student’s
t test for normally distributed variables and the Mann–Whitney
U test for non-normally distributed variables. We performed multivariate imputation by chained equations to impute missing values with five imputed data sets and 50 iterations [28 (
link), 29 (
link)]. For matched cohort analysis, we used 1:2 propensity score matching of individuals from the low and high TCO
2 groups [30 (
link), 31 (
link)]. The covariates used in the propensity score were as follows: age, sex, eGFR, respiratory infection, bacteremia, endocarditis, central nervous system infection, skin infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, genitourinary tract infection, intra-abdominal infection, septic shock, intensive care unit admission, use of mechanical ventilation, inotropes use, hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, autoimmune disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, malignancy, CCI score, calcium channel blockers, alpha blockers, beta blockers, renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system inhibitors, diuretics, statins, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, proton-pump inhibitors, antiplatelets, anticoagulants, and follow-up period. In addition, we calculated propensity scores for the likelihood of sepsis survivors with high and low TCO
2 by including clinical covariates in a multivariate logistic regression model (Table S1 in the supplementary material). The standardized mean difference was calculated to assess the balance between sepsis survivors with high and low TCO
2 after matching, and a difference of less than 0.1 in the score was considered to be well balanced [32 (
link), 33 (
link)]. Cox regression was used to obtain hazard ratios (HRs) for the evaluation of relative risks of outcomes in the two study groups. All analyses were performed using the SAS statistical software (version 9.4; SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA) and R software (version 3.5.2 for Windows; R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. The significance level was set to
p < 0.05.
Yang C.H., Chen Y.A., Bin P.J., Ou S.M, & Tarng D.C. (2023). Associations of the Serum Total Carbon Dioxide Level with Long-Term Clinical Outcomes in Sepsis Survivors. Infectious Diseases and Therapy, 12(2), 687-701.