A global perspective on the epidemiology of sepsis

Excerpt

Sepsis is an important reason for admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), the leading cause of death in non-coronary ICUs and one of the most common causes of death for all hospitalized patients [1, 2]. Currently, patients are diagnosed with severe sepsis if they meet the consensus clinical definition combining infection with physiologic derangements (systemic inflammatory response syndrome [SIRS] criteria) in the presence of acute organ dysfunction [3, 4]. In this issue of Intensive Care Medicine, two important studies substantially advance our understanding of the epidemiology of severe sepsis [5, 6]. The Episepsis group conducted a nationwide, prospective, multi-center survey of patients with severe sepsis in 206 French ICUs over two consecutive weeks [5]. They estimated the incidence of severe sepsis to be 95 cases per 100,000 in the French population. The mean age of the patients was 65 years and 54% had at least one co-morbid condition. The 30-day mortality rate was 35%. The productive Clinical Trials Group from the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) conducted a similar survey in 23 multi-disciplinary ICUs over a 3-month period and estimated the incidence of severe sepsis to be 77 cases per 100,000 population in their countries [6]. Consistent with previous studies [2, 7, 8], the mean age of their patients was 61 years, pulmonary and intra-abdominal sources were the most common sites of infection and positive cultures were present in 58% of cases. …