Admission lactate and LDH levels were associated with resection length in this selected surgical cohort. Individual-level predictive accuracy was not established, and these biomarkers cannot currently guide operative decisions.
Among 71 patients who underwent small bowel resection for acute mesenteric ischemia, the median resection length was 90 cm with a wide range.
Admission lactate and LDH levels each correlated positively with total small bowel resection length.
Lactate and LDH remained independently associated with resection length after adjustment for albumin and AMI etiology.
The adjusted model explained a moderate share of variance in resection length, and associations were robust to exclusion of influential observations.
In exploratory unadjusted comparisons, non-survivors had higher admission lactate and LDH levels than survivors.
The authors conclude that individual-level predictive accuracy was not established and the biomarkers cannot currently guide operative decisions.
This study looked at 71 patients who had part of their small intestine removed because of acute mesenteric ischemia, a condition where blood flow to the bowel is cut off. The researchers checked whether two blood tests taken at hospital admission, lactate and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), were linked to how much bowel had to be removed. Higher levels of both tests were associated with longer resections, with lactate showing the stronger link. The association held after accounting for albumin levels and the cause of the ischemia, and after removing unusually influential cases. In a separate exploratory comparison, patients who died in the hospital tended to have higher lactate and LDH on admission than those who survived. This comparison was not adjusted for other factors. This research suggests these blood tests reflect the extent of bowel damage across a group of patients. However, the study was retrospective, came from a single center, and included only patients who had surgery. The authors state that the tests' ability to predict resection length for an individual patient was not established, and the tests cannot currently be used to guide decisions about surgery.
Hidiroglu M, Yavuz A. (2026). Association of Preoperative Lactate and LDH Levels with Resection Length in Acute Mesenteric Ischemia.. Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania). https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina62101997