Treating Patients with Severe Sepsis

Sepsis is an infection-induced syndrome defined as the presence of two or more of the following features of systemic inflammation: fever or hypothermia, leukocytosis or leukopenia, tachycardia, and tachypnea or a supranormal minute ventilation.1 When an organ system begins to fail because of sepsis, the sepsis is considered severe. Each year, sepsis develops in more than 500,000 patients in the United States, and only 55 to 65 percent survive.2,3 Fortunately, the death rates in some subgroups of patients with sepsis-induced organ failure have decreased, even though there is no specific therapy for sepsis.3,4 The reduced mortality may be . . .