Sepsis definitions - Changing perspectives

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...

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...

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: New perspectives

This issue of Burns & Trauma is largely devoted to sepsis. The subject is of great importance, as is emphasized by the fact that much of our daily clinical work is aimed at preventing this potentially lethal condition. All hospital clinicians, and intensive care specialists in particular recognize the syndrome, but what is it, exactly, and how is it diagnosed? It is interesting that none of the...