All About Sepsis
What is sepsis?
Sepsis occurs when the body has an extreme, life-threatening response to an infection. The infection includes bacteria that enter the blood stream, triggering a chain reaction during which the patient’s immune system response damages its own tissues — through inflammation, swelling of the tissues, blood clotting and bleeding, and energy failure — potentially leading to organ failure and death. Most sepsis cases are caused by bacterial infections, but viral, fungal, or parasitic infections can also lead to sepsis.
Signs of sepsis
- Fever or low body temperature
- Chills and sweating
- Confusion or sleepiness
- Shortness of breath
- High heart rate
- Reduced urination
“The issue with sepsis right now is a lot of the treatments we use are supportive — meaning we might give the patient fluids because we need to keep their blood pressure high. But what we’re trying to do in my lab, and Dr. Lauralyn McIntyre’s group, is come up with some novel therapies to help the body heal itself when it has a condition like sepsis.”
How is sepsis treated?
Sepsis treatment involves keeping blood pressure normal through the use of large amounts of intravenous fluids to support the pressure and the use of antibiotics and removal of pus pockets to treat the infection. Generally, broad spectrum antibiotics are used first, with more targeted medication used if a more specific organism is identified. Sepsis causes several organs to fail. In the ICU, we often need to put patients on the mechanical ventilator due to lung failure, induce a coma with medications to sedate and treat pain, use the dialysis machine to remove toxins to kidney failure, and use intravenous medication infusions to support the blood pressure when the patient is in shock.
How to avoid sepsis
hand hygiene
for infections
of sepsis
What is the difference between sepsis and septic shock?
When a pathogen enters the blood stream of the patient, it has the potential to induce a more severe infection called sepsis.
Sepsis
Sepsis is characterized by the body’s response to an infection, which could include any number of organ failures — such as failure of the brain, heart and lungs, gut, or kidneys. Sepsis can also affect the blood by causing too much clotting and potentially bleeding.
Septic shock
Septic shock is the final and most serious stage of sepsis, in which the body’s response to the infection includes damage to organs as well as severely low blood pressure, or shock — leading to death in 20–40% of patients and upwards from that in the most severely ill.
Sepsis statistics
- Approximately 20% of all deaths globally are from sepsis
- Sepsis was the 14th leading cause of death in Canada in 2020
- Approximately 1 in 18 deaths in Canada involve sepsis, often as an underlying cause
- The chances of dying from sepsis increase by up to 8% for every hour antibiotic treatment is delayed
- Almost half of all global sepsis cases are in children
- As of 2020, it is estimated 75,000 cases of sepsis occur in Canada annually
- Sepsis contributes to more than half of all deaths from infectious disease in Canada
- Adults over 65, children under one, and patients who are immunosuppressed are at a higher risk for sepsis
