Vital sign triage to rule out diabetic ketoacidosis and non-ketotic hyperosmolar syndrome in hyperglycemic patients.

AIMS: To develop a prediction algorithm to rule out diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and non-ketotic hyperosmolar syndrome (NKHS) based on vital signs for early triage of patients with diabetes. METHODS: The subjects were consecutive adult diabetic patients with hyperglycemia (blood glucose >or=250mg/dl) who presented at an emergency department. Based on a derivation sample (n=392, 70% of 544 patients at a hospital in Okinawa), recursive partitioning analysis was used to develop a tree-based algorithm. Validation was conducted using the other 30% of the patients in Okinawa (n=152, internal validation) and patients at a hospital in Tokyo (n=95, external validation). RESULTS: Three risk groups for DKA/NKHS were identified: a high-risk group of patients with glucose >400mg/dl or systolic blood pressure <100mmHg; a low risk group of patients with glucose or=100mmHg, pulse