Recap of Sepsis Articles!

Sepsis is a clinical syndrome that complicates a severe infection, characterized by signs of inflammation (vasodilation, leukocyte accumulation, increased microvascular permeability) occurring in tissues that are remote from the infection.

Here are some key articles that we discussed today in Morning Report:

1) Early Goal-Directed Therapy in the Treatment of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock. Rivers, E. et al., NEJM 2001. http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa010307

2) Duration of hypotension before initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is the critical determinant of survival in human septic shock.  Kumar, A. et al., Critical Care Medicine 2006.

http://jvsmedicscorner.com/ICU-Inflammation_and_infection_files/Duration%20of%20hypotension%20before%20starting%20antibiotics%20determines%20outcome%20in%20septic%20shock.pdf