Vitamin C reduces short-term mortality in sepsis patients, study finds

China: Mono-intravenous vitamin C therapy may reduce short-term mortality in sepsis patients and also protects organ function, a recent study has found. The study appears in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 

Sepsis, the body's extreme response to an infection, is a common life-threatening emergency with substantial morbidity and mortality. The role of vitamin C in sepsis is still controversial. Considering this, TingLi, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China, and colleagues aimed to systematically review the efficacy of intravenous vitamin C supplementation in the treatment of sepsis.

For this purpose, the researchers comprehensively searched the online databases to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of vitamin C supplementation for patients with sepsis or sepsis shock from January 2000 to March 2021. Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted the data, and accessed the risk of bias in the included studies; meta-analysis was then performed by using Revman 5.4 software.

A total of 10 RCTs involving 1400 participants were included. 

"Our findings showed that mono-intravenous vitamin C therapy may reduce short-term mortality of sepsis patients, and it may protect organ functions," wrote the authors.

Due to the limitation of the quantity and quality of included studies, the above conclusions need to be verified by more large scale and high quality randomized control trials, they concluded. 

Reference:

The study titled, "Efficacy of intravenous vitamin C intervention for septic patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on randomized controlled trials," is published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

DOI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0735675721006513