survey of cases with sepsis & septic shock in the pediatric intensive care unit of children's hospital medical centre

sepsis is the systemic response to severe infection in critically ill patients. sepsis, septic syndrome & septic shock represent the increasingly severe stages of the same disease. despite the remarkable improvements in outcome, sepsis & septic shock remain an important cause of morbidity & mortality in children. this is a retrospective study among the patients who were admitted in the pediatric intensive care unit (picu) of children&apos;s hospital medical center from farvardin 1371 till esfand 1375. during this period 4018 children were admitted in the picu, 138 of these patients (3.4%) had the initial diagnosis of sepsis or septic shock. the age of these patients were from 3 months to 14 years (mean of 23.5 months). the male to female ratio was 2.1:1. out of these 138 patients only 16 cases (11.6%) had sepsis and the others (88.4%) had criterias of severe sepsis or septic shock. multiple organ dysfunction (mod) were found in 96 cases (69.3%). diarrhea was the most common primary disease that resulted in sepsis or septic shock. only 20.3% of the cultures were positive, among which e-coli was the most in 8.7%, staphylococcus aureus in 5.7%, klebsiella in 2.9% and pseudomonas in 1.4%. 66.7% of these patients expired, the mortality rates of the patients with severe sepsis or septic shock that concommitantely had mod were higher than the other (p<0.0005). so it may be better if children with clinical diagnosis of sepsis be hospitalized in an intensive care unit or at minimum in a facility that can closely monitor these patients during the initial stabilization period.