Sepsis: Changing Definitions, Unchanging Treatment.

Obonyo, N. G., et al. (2019). "Sepsis: Changing Definitions, Unchanging Treatment." Frontiers in Pediatrics 6: 5.

The recently revised Sepsis-3 definitions were based on criteria that were derived and validated in adult patient databases from high income countries. Both sepsis and septic shock continue to account for a substantial proportion of mortality globally, especially amongst children in low- and-middle income country settings. It is therefore urgent to develop and validate standardized criteria for sepsis that can be applied to pediatric populations in different settings, including in-and outside intensive care, both in high- and low/middle-income countries. This will be a pre-requisite to evaluate the impact of sepsis treatment strategies to improve clinical outcomes.