Critical illness in patients with a newly diagnosed hematologic malignancy is frequent, occurring early after diagnosis. Certain baseline characteristics can help identify those patients at the highest risk.

A total of 87,965 patients were included.

The 1-year incidence of ICU admission was 13.9%, ranging from 7.3% (indolent lymphoma) to 22.5% (acute myeloid leukemia).

After multivariable adjustment, compared to indolent lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia had the highest risk of ICU admission.

Comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and baseline laboratory abnormalities (anemia, thrombocytopenia and high creatinine) were also associated with ICU admission.

Among ICU patients, 36.7% required invasive mechanical ventilation and in-hospital mortality was 31%.

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