Severe sepsis epidemiology: sampling, selection, and society

Walter T Linde-Zwirble¹ and Derek C Angus²

¹Affiliate Faculty, The CRISMA Laboratory (Clinical Research, Investigation, and Systems Modeling of Acute Illness), University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, and Vice-President, Chief Scientific Officer, Health Process Management, LLC, Doylestown, PA, USA

²Director, The CRISMA Laboratory (Clinical Research, Investigation, and Systems Modeling of Acute Illness), Vice Chair for Research and Professor, Department of Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, and Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

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Critical Care 2004, 8:222-226doi:10.1186/cc2917


Published:	9 July 2004

Abstract

Three new articles in Critical Care add to an expanding body of information on the epidemiology of severe sepsis. Although there have been a range of approaches to estimate the incidence of severe sepsis, most studies report severe sepsis in about 10 ± 4% of ICU patients with a population incidence of 1 ± 0.5 cases per 1000. Importantly, the availability of ICU services may well determine the number of treated cases of severe sepsis, and it seems clear that these studies are reporting the treated incidence, not the incidence, of severe sepsis. In the future, we must focus on whether all severe sepsis should be treated, and, consequently, what level of ICU services is optimal.