Albumin as prognostic value in hospitalised patients

Abstract

Serum albumin is generally used to assess the nutritional status, severity of disease, disease progression and prognosis. In the hospital setting, many reports have related serum albumin level to in-hospital mortality, length of stay (LOS), and nosocomial infection. Serum albumin has also been described as an independent prognosticator of survival in various diseases of lung, pancreatic, gastric, colorectal and breast. Low serum albumin has also been shown to be an independent indicator for prognosis in patients. However, these studies differ from each other with regard to population studied, study design, sample size, definition of low serum albumin used and factors adjusted for in the analyses.