Utility of Sepsis-induced Coagulopathy Among Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation Diagnostic Criteria: A Multicenter Retrospective Validation Study

The criteria for diagnosing sepsis-induced coagulopathy (SIC) may overlap with those of Japanese Association for Acute Medicine (JAAM) disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). This study determined if the diagnostic criteria of SIC overlap with JAAM DIC diagnostic criteria for identifying patients with DIC according to the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) criteria and whether the patients diagnosed with these criteria have the same prognosis.This multicenter retrospective study included patients with sepsis diagnosed using the JAAM and ISTH DIC and SIC criteria on days 1 and 4. The established ISTH DIC criteria was the reference standard for primary outcome that compared the characteristics of SIC and JAAM DIC. Secondary outcomes were multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), ventilator-free and intensive care unit-free days, and in-hospital mortality.A total of 1,438 patients were included in this study. On day 1, the JAAM DIC and SIC criteria diagnosed almost all patients with ISTH DIC (98 and 94%, respectively), predicting ISTH DIC (area under the receiver operating curve [AUC]: 0.740 versus 0.752, <i>p</i> = 0.523) and MODS (AUC: 0.686 versus 0.697, <i>p</i> = 0.546) on day 4 and progressing to ISTH DIC in the same proportion (28.6 versus 30.1%, <i>p</i> = 0.622). There were no differences in survival probabilities (<i>p</i> = 0.196) or secondary outcomes between patients diagnosed using JAAM DIC and SIC criteria on day 1.SIC and JAAM DIC diagnoses were equal among patients with sepsis, suggesting that SIC criteria add little to current DIC scoring systems.