LOVIT. Vitamin C in septic shock with Dr. Oleksa Rewa.

Join us on this episode as we talk to Dr Oleksa Rewa, who along with Professor J Kutsogiannis (Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Alberta, Canada), were authors on the recently published LOVIT paper.

Dr. Oleksa Rewa is an Assistant Professor and an Associate Chair for Research & Innovation in the Department of Critical Care Medicine and has a Masters of Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Alberta. He completed his M.D. and Internal Medicine Residency at Queen’s University followed by his Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at the University of Toronto. Dr. Rewa’s research focuses on Critical Care Nephrology with a specific interest in evaluating the quality of healthcare delivery for critically ill patients.

Vitamin C administration in Septic Shock has been a hot topic over the last few years. It’s role as a powerful anti-oxidant and possible therapy to minimize tissue damage in Septic Shock gained traction after the publicized paper by Marik et al (link below).

Listen as we tease apart the LOVIT trial and discuss the following learning points:

1. Vitamin C is not associated with any improvement in clinical outcomes in critically ill patients.

2. Death or persistent organ dysfunction seems higher in the Vitamin C group.

3. Translation of scientific data can be accelerated improving knowledge translation where it is needed the most, next to the bedside.

Further reading:

LOVIT paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2200644

VITAMINS paper: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2759414

ATESS paper: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00134-020-06191-3.pdf

Marik paper: http://journal.publications.chestnet.org/article.aspx?articleid=2593508

Meta Analysis on Vitamin C in Septic shock: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-021-06558-0