Critical Care

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Commentary

Diabetes and sepsis outcomes – it is not all bad news

Sachin Yende1,2* and Tom van der Poll3

Author Affiliations

1 The Clinical Research, Investigation, and Systems Modeling of Acute Illness (CRISMA) Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA

2 Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA

3 Center of Infection and Immunity Amsterdam (CINIMA) and Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Critical Care 2009, 13:117 doi:10.1186/cc7707

Published: 18 February 2009

Abstract

Patients with diabetes mellitus have an increased risk of developing infections and sepsis. In this issue of Critical Care Esper and colleagues report on a large survey, involving 12.5 million sepsis cases, that examined the impact of pre-existing diabetes on organ dysfunction during sepsis. Their main conclusion was that diabetes patients, relative to non-diabetics, were less likely to develop respiratory failure and more likely to develop renal failure during the course of sepsis.