Clinical signs, profound acidemia, hypoglycemia, and hypernatremia are predictive of mortality in 1,400 critically ill neonatal calves with diarrhea

Profound acidemia impairs cellular and organ function and consequently should be associated with an increased risk of mortality in critically ill humans and animals. Neonatal diarrhea in calves can result in potentially serious metabolic derangements including profound acidemia due to strong ion (metabolic) acidosis, hyper-D-lactatemia, hyper-L-lactatemia, azotemia, hypoglycemia, hyperkalemia and hyponatremia. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the prognostic relevance of clinical and laboratory findings in 1,400 critically ill neonatal calves with diarrhea admitted to a veterinary teaching hospital. The mortality rate was 22%. Classification tree analysis indicated that mortality was associated with clinical signs of neurologic disease, abdominal emergencies, cachexia, orthopedic problems such as septic arthritis, and profound acidemia (jugular venous blood pH