The association between intravenous fluid resuscitation and mortality in older emergency department patients with suspected infection.

Objective: Recent studies suggest that hypotension thresholds in current guidelines might be too low for older patients due to arterial stiffening, possibly leading to insufficient fluid resuscitation. We compared intravenous (IV) fluid volumes that older (≥ 70 years) and younger (< 70 years) patients with suspected infection with similar initial systolic blood pressure (SBP) received in the emergency department (ED) and investigated whether this was associated with in-hospital mortality in older patients.

Methods: This was an observational multicenter study using an existing database in which consecutive ED patients hospitalized with suspected infection were prospectively included.