Amanda Carolina Damasceno Zanuto
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Alexandre Sanches Larangeira
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Marcos Toshiyuki Tanita
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Hugo Kenzo Ishioka
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Cintia Magalhães Carvalho Grion
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Introduction: Hyperammonemia can represent organic dysfunction of the brain, kidney, or liver. Evaluation of serum ammonia concentrations as a parameter for organ dysfunction may be justified. Objective: To evaluate the performance of serum ammonia as an additional or substitute variable for organ systems in the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. Methods: A prospective cohort study including 173 patients admitted to the intensive care unit between March 2015 and February 2016. SOFAMONIA scores were defined as follows: SOFAMONIA1 (Glasgow coma scale replaced by serum ammonia), SOFAMONIA2 (serum bilirubin replaced by serum ammonia), SOFAMONIA3 (renal system score replaced by serum ammonia), and SOFAMONIA4 (addition of serum ammonia to the original SOFA as the seventh variable, changing the maximum score from 24 to 28). Results: The original SOFA presented an area under the curve–receiver operating characteristic of 0.697 to predict hospital mortality. There was a positive correlation between SOFA and SOFAMONIA scores. SOFAMONIA1 presented a cut-off point of 5 for area under the curve 0.684 (0.610–0.753, 95% confidence interval), SOFAMONIA2 presented a cut-off point of 9 for area under the curve 0.701 (0.626–0.768, 95% confidence interval), SOFAMONIA3 presented a cut-off point of 8 for area under the curve 0.674 (0.598–0.743, 95% confidence interval), and SOFAMONIA4 presented a cut-off point of 8 for area under the curve 0.702 (0.628–0.769, 95% confidence interval). Conclusions: The addition of ammonia as the seventh parameter of the SOFA score showed the best performance to predict hospital mortality. The addition of ammonia as a representative of metabolic dysfunction may be useful in the follow-up of critically ill patients.