It used high-quality databases for this assessment and confirmed the biological and clinical appropriateness of 90-day follow up by showing that 90 days after ICU admission, sellectchem the degree of illness severity at ICU admission remained an important predictor of outcome. However, our study also has limitations. Although the WA cohort was comparable with a wider Australian ICU sample in severity of illness and hospital survival, it is still possible that the survival pattern of the two cohorts could be different and we failed to detect such a difference. This seems unlikely given the striking similarity in illness severity, short-term outcome similarities, and the general uniformity of the urban Australian population. It further seems unlikely given that the observations are internally consistent for three separate conditions.

However, our results may not be generally applicable to ICU patients in other countries because hospital and healthcare systems vary. Thus, similar studies in other countries are now desirable.The sample size of the WA cohort in this study was relatively small and the results, therefore, have wide confidence intervals. We acknowledge that our study may not have enough power to truly assess the importance of the selected predictors of mortality. Accordingly, studies involving larger samples may also be desirable to confirm these findings. In addition, we only examined three specific subgroups of critically ill patients. The survival pattern during the first 180 days after the onset of other critical illness may be different in other diagnostic groups [24].

However, these patients have been the subject of many of the randomized controlled trials conducted in ICUs over the past decade and as such, the correct choice of an appropriate landmark survival end point seems particularly important.ConclusionsA minimum follow-up time of 90 days without censoring at hospital discharge is necessary to fully capture the mortality effect of community acquired pneumonia and sepsis. For non-operative trauma, a shorter follow-up time appears to be sufficient. This information is important in providing an evidence-based approach in designing and interpreting randomized controlled trials involving these conditions.Key messages? Hospital or 28-day mortality is not an adequate follow up end-point for interventional trials in ICU that involve sepsis and community acquired pneumonia.? Mortality after hospital discharge is significant up to 90 days when it appears to reach a plateau.? Severity of illness is the main determinant of mortality at 90 days and, as such, any interventions that Brefeldin_A aim to attenuate physiological derangement from sepsis or community acquired pneumonia are likely to have a significant effect on mortality up to 90 days.