Do Sepsis-3 Criteria Facilitate Earlier Recognition of Sepsis and Septic Shock? A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: New Sepsis-3 criteria are supposed to “facilitate earlier recognition … of patients with sepsis.” To test this, we performed novel and direct comparisons of Sepsis-1 vs. Sepsis-3 criteria with respect to time differences of sepsis onset. Methods: In a cohort of intensive care unit (ICU) patients prospectively diagnosed with severe sepsis or septic shock according to Sepsis-1 criteria between 01/2010 and 12/2015, the time differences between meeting Sepsis-1 vs. Sepsis-3 criteria as time of sepsis onset and the corresponding differences in illness severity were tested. Similar comparisons were performed for septic shock subset meeting different Sepsis-1 vs. Sepsis-3 criteria. Patients with non-ICU-acquired sepsis and patients with sepsis onset more than 48 h postadmission (ICU-acquired sepsis) were analyzed separately to account for differences in availability of routinely collected organ dysfunction data. Results: A total of 10,905 ICU patients were screened; 862 patients met Sepsis-1 criteria, of whom 834 (97%) also met Sepsis-3 criteria. In patients, admitted to the ICU with sepsis, Sepsis-3 criteria compared with Sepsis-1 criteria were more frequently fulfilled within the first 3 h (84% vs. 75%, P 
Source: Shock - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Clinical Science Aspects Source Type: research