The Pediatric infectious disease journal
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Pediatr. Infect. Dis. J. · Jul 1995
Application of new sepsis definitions to evaluate outcome of pediatric patients with severe systemic infections.
No published reports have stratified pediatric patients with systemic infections according to the new sepsis terminology guidelines. In addition little is known about the outcome of sepsis in developing countries. This large 12-year retrospective study evaluated the outcome of 815 infants and children with sepsis managed in a Latin American pediatric intensive care unit. ⋯ Case-fatality rates were higher in patients with septic shock, multiorgan dysfunction, sepsis caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and meningococcemia than in those without these conditions. Although no difference in mortality was detected between culture-proved and culture-negative sepsis, more patients receiving an inappropriate antimicrobial agent died than those treated with an appropriate drug (53% vs. 34%, P = 0.012). We believe that with the use of the new terminology system a more reliable comparison of data from pediatric sepsis studies and of emerging immunomodulating therapeutic modalities can be achieved.