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Background: Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is a rare but potentially life-threatening soft tissue infection. The objective of this study was to assess the association between timely surgery within 6 h and hospital mortality in patients with limb NF, and to describe the trends in patients with NF, time to surgery and standardized mortality ratio (SMR) over 11 years. Methods: This was a multicenter, retrospective cohort study of all intensive care unit patients who had emergency surgery within 24 h of hospitalization for limb NF between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2019 in Hong Kong. Timely surgery was defined as the first surgical treatment within 6 h of initial hospitalization. Appropriate antibiotics were achieved if the patient was given antibiotic(s) for all documented pathogens prior to or on day of culture results. The primary outcome was hospital mortality. Results: There were 495 patients (median age 62 years, 349 (70.5%) males) with limb NF treated by surgery within 24 h of hospitalization over the 11 years. Appropriate antibiotic(s) were used in 392 (79.2%) patients. There were 181 (36.5%) deaths. Timely surgery was not associated with hospital mortality (Relative Risk 0.89, 95% CI: 0.73 to 1.07) but admission year, advanced age, higher severity of illness, comorbidities, renal replacement therapy, vasopressor use, and type of surgery were significant predictors in the multivariable model. There was an upward trend in NF diagnosis (1.9 cases/year, 95% CI: 0.7 to 3.1; P < 0.01; R2 = 0.60) but there was no downward trend in median time to surgery (-0.2 h/year, 95% CI: -0.4 to 0.1; P = 0.16) or SMR (-0.02/year, 95% CI: -0.06 to 0.01; P = 0.22; R2 = 0.16). Conclusions: Among patients operated within 24 h, very early surgery within 6–12 h was not associated with survival. Increasing limb NF cases were reported each year but mortality remained high despite a high rate of appropriate antibiotic use and timely surgical intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Globally, mortality rates of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) have decreased over the last two decades. However, evaluations of the temporal trends in the characteristics and outcomes of ICU patients in Asia are limited. The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics and risk adjusted outcomes of all patients admitted to publicly funded ICUs in Hong Kong over a 11-year period. The secondary objective was to validate the predictive performance of Acute Physiology And Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) IV for ICU patients in Hong Kong. Methods: This was an 11-year population-based retrospective study of all patients admitted to adult general (mixed medical-surgical) intensive care units in Hong Kong public hospitals. ICU patients were identified from a population electronic health record database. Prospectively collected APACHE IV data and clinical outcomes were analysed. Results: From 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2019, there were a total of 133,858 adult ICU admissions in Hong Kong public hospitals. During this time, annual ICU admissions increased from 11,267 to 14,068, whilst hospital mortality decreased from 19.7 to 14.3%. The APACHE IV standard mortality ratio (SMR) decreased from 0.81 to 0.65 during the same period. Linear regression demonstrated that APACHE IV SMR changed by − 0.15 (95% CI − 0.18 to − 0.11) per year (Pearson's R = − 0.951, p < 0.001). Observed median ICU length of stay was shorter than that predicted by APACHE IV (1.98 vs. 4.77, p < 0.001). C-statistic for APACHE IV to predict hospital mortality was 0.889 (95% CI 0.887 to 0.891) whilst calibration was limited (Hosmer–Lemeshow test p < 0.001). Conclusions: Despite relatively modest per capita health expenditure, and a small number of ICU beds per population, Hong Kong consistently provides a high-quality and efficient ICU service. Number of adult ICU admissions has increased, whilst adjusted mortality has decreased over the last decade. Although APACHE IV had good discrimination for hospital mortality, it overestimated hospital mortality of critically ill patients in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]