Intravenous vitamin C therapy in adult patients with sepsis: A rapid practice guideline

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Annika Reintam Blaser
  • Waleed Alhazzani
  • Emilie Belley-Cote
  • Neill K. J. Adhikari
  • Lisa Burry
  • Craig M. Coopersmith
  • Zainab Al Duhailib
  • Tomoko Fujii
  • Anders Granholm
  • Jan Gunst
  • Naomi Hammond
  • Lu Ke
  • Francois Lamontagne
  • Cecilia Loudet
  • Matt Morgan
  • Marlies Ostermann
  • Matti Reinikainen
  • Ricardo Rosenfeld
  • Claudia Spies
  • Simon Oczkowski

Background: This Rapid Practice Guideline provides an evidence-based recommendation to address the question: in adults with sepsis or septic shock, should we recommend using or not using intravenous vitamin C therapy?. Methods: The panel included 21 experts from 16 countries and used a strict policy for potential financial and intellectual conflicts of interest. Methodological support was provided by the Guidelines in Intensive Care, Development, and Evaluation (GUIDE) group. Based on an updated systematic review, and the grading of recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluation approach, we evaluated the certainty of evidence and developed recommendations using the evidence-to-decision framework. We conducted an electronic vote, requiring >80% agreement among the panel for a recommendation to be adopted. Results: At longest follow-up, 90 days, intravenous vitamin C probably does not substantially impact (relative risk 1.05, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.94 to 1.17; absolute risk difference 1.8%, 95% CI −2.2 to 6.2; 6 trials, n = 2148, moderate certainty). Effects of vitamin C on mortality at earlier timepoints was of low or very low certainty due to risk of bias of the included studies and significant heterogeneity between study results. Few adverse events were reported with the use of vitamin C. The panel did not identify any major differences in other outcomes, including duration of mechanical ventilation, ventilator free days, hospital or intensive care unit length of stay, acute kidney injury, need for renal replacement therapy. Vitamin C may result in a slight reduction in duration of vasopressor support (MD −18.9 h, 95% CI −26.5 to −11.4; 21 trials, n = 2661, low certainty); but may not reduce sequential organ failure assessment scores (MD −0.69, 95% CI −1.55 to 0.71; 24 trials, n = 4002, low certainty). The panel judged the undesirable consequences of using IV vitamin C to probably outweigh the desirable consequences, and therefore issued a conditional recommendation against using IV vitamin C therapy in sepsis. Conclusions: The panel suggests against use of intravenous vitamin C in adult patients with sepsis, beyond that of standard nutritional supplementation. Small and single center trials on this topic should be discouraged.

Original languageEnglish
JournalActa Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica
Volume67
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)1423-1431
ISSN0001-5172
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation.

    Research areas

  • ascorbic acid, guidelines, ICM-RPG, sepsis, vitamin C

ID: 362339121