Association between the lactate-to-albumin ratio at admission to the pediatric intensive care unit and in-hospital all-cause mortality

Objective This study investigated the association between lactate-to-albumin ratio at admission to the pediatric intensive care unit and in-hospital all-cause mortality. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from a large pediatric electronic database that included 9,689 critically ill children. The primary exposure variable was the first lactate-to-albumin ratio, which was analyzed as a continuous variable, while the outcome variable was in-hospital mortality. Multiple regression was employed to assess the relationship between lactate-to-albumin ratio and mortality, adjusting for potential confounders, such as length of hospital stay, sex, and other laboratory indicators. Results The results of the study revealed a significant positive correlation between the lactate-to-albumin ratio and in-hospital all-cause mortality. After adjustment, the regression coefficient (β) was4.05 (95% CI: 3.40 to 4.70, P < 0.01), indicating that a higher lactate-to-albumin ratio was associated with a high mortality risk. Tertile analysis showed that a high lactate-to-albumin ratio had significantly higher mortality rates than the low group, and sex-stratified analyses revealed a consistent positive correlation among both males and females.Additionally, and the association was most pronounced in all intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Conclusion This study highlights the potential of the lactate-to-albumin ratio as a predictive marker for critically ill pediatric patients in intensive care units. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring this ratio to evaluate patient risk and emphasize the need for further extensive multicenter studies to validate these findings.