Lactate in IVF Leads to Lactic Acidosis?

"Lactate in fluids, such as Ringer's lactate, causes a lactic acidosis". Ugh. How I cringe every time I hear or read that. You should take into account your patients organ failures since lactate is metabolized approximately 60% in the liver, 30% in the kidneys, and 10% elsewhere (including the heart, muscles, etc depending on your source).

There's no perfect trial to go ahead and prove this concept, but I have linked this study which FREE where they provided patients with a sodium lactate solution versus Hartmann's solution, aka Ringers Lactate. To provide some context, LR provides the patient with Sodium Lactate, 28mmol/L to be exact. The half-molar Sodium Lactate solution described in this article has 504mmol/L of Sodium Lactate. I struggled quite a bit to find that concentration but thankfully I found it in a Spanish (Spain) article.

I have attached the table to illustrate several points. First, if you notice the Sodium Lactate did not create an acidosis in any of the patient groups, on the contrary, they trended more so towards an alkalosis, even a statistically significant alkalosis in the case of the "lactate" group. Overall, there was no increase in lactate whatsoever in the LR group which means that there's no "lactic acidosis" created by LR. It does not make patients acidotic. If you have a functioning liver and kidneys, that lactate is metabolized into bicarbonate. Hope that all makes sense.

A hat tip to the authors.

-EJ

Link to Article

Link to FULL FREE PDF

Nalos, M., Leverve, X.M., Huang, S.J. et al. Half-molar sodium lactate infusion improves cardiac performance in acute heart failure: a pilot randomised controlled clinical trial. Crit Care 18, R48 (2014)

Although great care has been taken to ensure that the information in this post is accurate, eddyjoemd, LLC shall not be held responsible or in any way liable for the continued accuracy of the information, or for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies, or for any consequences arising therefrom.