https://doi.org/10.4081/ecj.2025.13941
Reconsidering the role of lactate as a predictor of acute asthma severity in the emergency department
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Published: 6 August 2025
Assessing acute asthma severity in the Emergency Department (ED) may be challenging for emergency physicians. In order to assess if lactate levels at ED presentation can independently indicate the necessity for hospitalization, thereby acting as an objective measure of asthma attack severity we retrospectively collected data from 96 patients accessed to our ED in 2024, including patients’ medical history, vital signs and arterial blood gas analysis. Patients were divided in two groups: discharged or admitted. The primary endpoint was the need for hospitalization. In the results, hospitalized patients exhibited a markedly lower P/F and higher lactate levels. In the univariate analysis, admission was significantly linked to lactate levels and P/F ratio. The multivariate analysis further validated lactate and P/F ratio as independent predictors of hospital admission among a series of confounders. In conclusion, plasma lactate should be reevaluated as a severity marker for acute asthma patients in the Emergency Department.
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