Sepsis lacks pathognomonic clinical features and a definitive
biochemical or histological diagnostic test. As
a result, since 1992, diagnosis of sepsis has been based
on the presence of two or more of the criteria characterising the systemic inflammatory response syndrome
(SIRS) (Table 1) arising from suspected or proven infection. In response to data questioning this construct, new criteria redefining sepsis, based on the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, have been proposed:
Sepsis-3 (Table 1). The epidemiological and clinical
implications of adopting these new criteria are currently
unknown. We aimed to estimate the impact of adopting
SOFA-based diagnostic criteria for sepsis on the diagnosis
and apparent mortality of sepsis in Australian and
New Zealand intensive care units
