Sepsis : where are we up to?

Abstract

It is quite common that we read about novel infections. We are all aware about the mortality secondary to ST elevation Myocardial Infarction which stands at around 8%. Meanwhile, sepsis is an old enemy that still kills many of our patients across the board. Mortality has remained high despite advances in pathobiology due to its complexity and heterogeneity with up to 10% for sepsis going up to 40% for septic shock. Considerable changes in the 2001 definitions of Sepsis were published in the third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (Sepsis-3). The old definitions including SIRS (Systemic inflammatory response syndrome), Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock were found to be lacking in sensitivity and specificity while being too lax to allow consistency in gathering data. By using electronic health record data from patients admitted with infection it was possible to retrospectively evaluate the best tools to screen for sepsis in patients with suspected infection while aiming for simplicity.