Two years ago, a panel appointed by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, referred to as a consensus conference, proposed a new definition for sepsis and new diagnostic criteria for sepsis and septic shock, known as Sepsis-3 (Singer M, et al. JAMA. 2016;315[8]:801). The panel proposed that sepsis be defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection. Upon reflection, one could see that what we had called definitions of sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock for over 2 decades actually represented diagnostic criteria more than concise definitions. In that regard, a concise definition is a useful addition in the tool kit for training all health-care professionals to recognize sepsis and to treat it early and aggressively.

Read More