Changing Definitions of Sepsis

Sepsis definitions

Evaluation of definitions for sepsis.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the current definitions for sepsis and clarify and quantify the risk for intensive care unit (ICU) patients with sepsis. DESIGN A prospective cohort analysis of 519 patients with a primary clinical diagnosis of sepsis treated in the ICUs of 40 US hospitals drawn from a nationally representative sample of 17,440 admissions. MEASUREMENTS Patient's age, treatment location...

Changing definitions of metabolic syndrome

The first description of patients with clustering of various metabolic abnormalities was as early as 1923 but it was more than five decades later, in 1988, that Reaven coined the term 'syndrome X' for this entity. The last two decades have brought forth a number of definitions and criteria to identify this condition. Various studies have demonstrated disparities in these definitions and a few r...

Sepsis definitions: time for change.

For the Ancient Greeks, sepsis referred to rot, decay, or putrefaction. Galen and Celsus described the signs of infl ammation as peripheral vasodilatation (rubor), fever (calor), pain (dolor), increased capillary permeability (tumor), and organ dysfunction (functio laesa). The modern concept of sepsis has focused on the human response to invading organisms. In 1991, a North American consensus c...

Raising concerns about the Sepsis-3 definitions

The Global Alliance for Infections in Surgery appreciates the great effort of the task force who derived and validated the Sepsis-3 definitions and considers the new definitions an important step forward in the evolution of our understanding of sepsis. Nevertheless, more than a year after their publication, we have a few concerns regarding the use of the Sepsis-3 definitions.