Perspectives and Implications of the New Sepsis Clinical Practice Guidelines

The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) advocates for early recognition and prompt treatment to decrease mortality from sepsis (1). Currently, the mortality rate associated with septic shock is greater than 40%, which makes early detection imperative (2-4). In the article by Zhang and colleagues entitled, “AME evidence series 001—The Society for Translational Medicine: clinical practice guidelines for diagnosis and early identification of sepsis in the hospital”, the authors discuss recent evidence that supports early recognition of sepsis (5). The comprehensive analysis examines the new definition of sepsis based on the guidelines published by the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3) and provides a detailed assessment of sepsis screening using the Grades of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework.