Severe sepsis and its impact on outcome in old and very old patients admitted to the intensive care unit

Abstract

In 2002, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign defi ned a strategy that aimed to reduce the high mortality due to sepsis. One point of this strategy was a recommendation to recognize that sepsis is a frequent cause of death and high economic costs in the pediatric intensive care unit. Knowledge of the disease is the fi rst step to impact it. There are few studies on pediatric sepsis epidemiology in the world and none in Colombia. Hypothesis The epidemiological features of Colombian children are diff erent from other countries. Methods We constructed a website where 14 intensive care units across the country reported in a prospective way the epidemiological features of children with sepsis using an electronic process [1]. We asked for sociodemographics, microbiological data, sepsis classifi cation, complications, and outcome.