High blood sugar levels increase the rate of in-hospital deaths by nearly 40 percent in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This increased mortality is seen even in patients with mild blood sugar elevations, according to results of a chart review.
The increased mortality was only partially influenced by the presence of pervasive infection (sepsis), Dr. Naeem Ali and colleagues at Ohio State University in Columbus note in their study, published in the journal Cancer.
Ali's team reviewed the records of 283 adult AML patients who had a total of 636 hospitalizations over a 3-year period, assessing the outcomes and blood sugar levels. While diabetes was uncommon, 56 percent of the patients had at least one episode of very high blood sugar, also referred to as hyperglycemia, and 91 percent had an episode of hyperglycemia that was milder.
The mortality risk associated with hyperglycemia during hospitalization was 38 percent higher than normal, after accounting for the patients' disease state, treatment type, response, and other variables.
Although the risk of developing sepsis or severe sepsis with respiratory failure was increased among patients with hyperglycemia, sepsis did not explain the relationship between hyperglycemia and the higher mortality risk, the team reports.
Although it is not clear if tight control over AML patients' blood sugar levels would improve their outcomes, as it does among critically ill patients, Ali's team notes, "these results provide an impetus for further investigation in this area."