Vitamin C administration worsens outcomes of sepsis patients on vasopressor therapy: NEJM

The key findings of this study were as follow:

1. Randomization was performed on a total of 872 subjects.

2. In the vitamin C group, 191 of 429 patients (44.5%) experienced the primary outcome, while 167 of 434 patients (38.5%) experienced it in the control group.

3. At 28 days, deaths had occurred in 152 of the 429 patients (35.4%) who had received vitamin C and in 137 of the 434 patients (31.6%) who had received a placebo.

4. Persistent organ dysfunction had occurred in 39 of the 429 patients (9.1%) and in 30 of the 434 patients (6.9%) in the vitamin C group and the placebo group, respectively.

5. The results for organ-dysfunction scores, biomarkers, health-related quality of life, 6-month survival, stage 3 acute renal damage, and hypoglycemia episodes were comparable across the two groups.

6. One patient in the vitamin C group experienced a major episode of hypoglycemia, while another experienced a serious anaphylactic reaction.

"The findings of this study suggests that when given to sepsis patients in the intensive care unit, vitamin C was proven to be significantly harmful," said the Authors in conclusion.

Reference:

Lamontagne, F., Masse, M.-H., Menard, J., Sprague, S., Pinto, R., Heyland, D. K., Cook, D. J., Battista, M.-C., Day, A. G., Guyatt, G. H., Kanji, S., McGuinness, S. P., … Adhikari, N. K. J. (2022). Intravenous Vitamin C in Adults with Sepsis in the Intensive Care Unit. In New England Journal of Medicine. Massachusetts Medical Society. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa2200644