• Charles L Sprung, Yasser Sakr, Jean-Louis Vincent, Jean-Roger Le Gall, Konrad Reinhart, V Marco Ranieri, Herwig Gerlach, Jonathan Fielden, C B Groba, and Didier Payen.
• Hadassah Hebrew University, Medical Center, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, P.O. Box 1200, 91120, Jerusalem, Israel. sprung@cc.huji.ac.il
• Intensive Care Med. 2006 Mar 1;32(3):421-7.

ObjectiveTo define the frequency and prognostic implications of SIRS criteria in critically ill patients hospitalized in European ICUs.Design And SettingCohort, multicentre, observational study of 198 ICUs in 24 European countries.Patients And InterventionsAll 3,147 new adult admissions to participating ICUs between 1 and 15 May 2002 were included. Data were collected prospectively, with common SIRS criteria.ResultsDuring the ICU stay 93% of patients had at least two SIRS criteria [respiratory rate (82%), heart rate (80%)]. The frequency of having three or four SIRS criteria vs. two was higher in infected than non-infected patients (p < 0.01). In non-infected patients having more than two SIRS criteria was associated with a higher risk of subsequent development of severe sepsis (odds ratio 2.6, p < 0.01) and septic shock (odds ratio 3.7, p < 0.01). Organ system failure and mortality increased as the number of SIRS criteria increased.ConclusionsAlthough common in the ICU, SIRS has prognostic importance in predicting infections, severity of disease, organ failure and outcome.

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