Determinants of Total/ionized Calcium in patients undergoing citrate CVVH: A retrospective observational study

Purpose: To identify potential determinants of the Total/ionized Ca ratio (T/iCa), a marker of citrate accumulation. Materials and methods: Single-center retrospective observational study evaluating citrate dose, citrate target, albumin, phosphate, pH, lactate, and APACHE II score as potential determinants. Linear mixed models (LMM) using citrate dose and citrate target were developed describing associations with T/iCa. Results: From a dataset of 471 samples in 103 patients, an LMM in 379 complete samples (95 patients) sets revealed that citrate dose, pH, phosphate, albumin and APACHE were interactively related to T/iCa. A rising citrate dose was associated with a higher increase in T/iCa when phosphate was high, and less when phosphate was low. A rising albumin was associated with a higher increase in T/iCa when APACHE was high and phosphate was low and less when APACHE was low and phosphate high. In case of acidosis, a rising lactate was associated with a higher increase in T/iCa. In the LMM using citrate target, citrate target and pH were the main independent predictors of T/iCa with albumin, phosphate and APACHE score as modifiers. Conclusions: Besides citrate dose, a high pH and high phosphate, albumin and APACHE are also associated with a rising T/iCa.