Computed tomography in patients with sepsis presenting to the emergency department: exploring its role in light of patient outcomes.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the role of CT in septic patients presenting to the emergency department (ED).

Materials And Methods: We performed a retrospective secondary analysis of 192 septic patients from a prospective observational study, i.e.

Biomarkers Improve Diagnostics of Sepsis in Adult Patients With Suspected Organ Dysfunction Based on the Quick Sepsis-Related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) Score in the Emergency Department.

Objectives: Consensus regarding biomarkers for detection of infection-related organ dysfunction in the emergency department is lacking. We aimed to identify and validate biomarkers that could improve risk prediction for overt or incipient organ dysfunction when added to quick Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) as a screening tool.

Design: In a large prospective multicenter cohort of adult patients presenting to the emergency department with a qSOFA score greater than or equal to 1, admission plasma levels of C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, adrenomedullin (either bioavailable adrenomedullin or midregional fragment of proadrenomedullin), proenkephalin, and dipeptidyl peptidase 3 were assessed.

Diagnostic Performance of Procalcitonin for the Early Identification of Sepsis in Patients with Elevated qSOFA Score at Emergency Admission.

Infectious biomarkers such as procalcitonin (PCT) can help overcome the lack of sensitivity of the quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) score for early identification of sepsis in emergency departments (EDs) and thus might be beneficial as point-of-care biomarkers in EDs. Our primary aim was to investigate the diagnostic performance of PCT for the early identification of septic patients and patients likely to develop sepsis within 96 h of admission to an ED among a prospectively selected patient population with elevated qSOFA score. In a large multi-centre prospective cohort study, we included all adult patients ( = 742) with a qSOFA score of at least 1 who presented to the ED.

Comparing the validity of different ICD coding abstraction strategies for sepsis case identification in German claims data.

Introduction: Administrative data are used to generate estimates of sepsis epidemiology and can serve as source for quality indicators. Aim was to compare estimates on sepsis incidence and mortality based on different ICD-code abstraction strategies and to assess their validity for sepsis case identification based on a patient sample not pre-selected for presence of sepsis codes.

Materials And Methods: We used the national DRG-statistics for assessment of population-level sepsis incidence and mortality.

An Early Warning Scoring System to Identify Septic Patients in the Prehospital Setting: The PRESEP Score.

Objectives: The objective was to develop and evaluate an early sepsis detection score for the prehospital setting.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of consecutive patients who were admitted by emergency medical services (EMS) to the emergency department of the Jena University Hospital was performed. Because potential predictors for sepsis should be based on consensus criteria, the following parameters were extracted from the EMS protocol for further analysis: temperature, heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), oxygen saturation (SaO2 ), Glasgow Coma Scale score, blood glucose, and systolic blood pressure (sBP).

The effect of antenatal steroid treatment on fetal autonomic heart rate regulation revealed by fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG).

Background: Steroid administration to accelerate fetal lung maturation reduces neonatal morbidity and mortality in the case of preterm delivery. Behavioral observations suggest effects on fetal cardiovascular regulation.

Aim: We hypothesize that beat to beat heart rate variability (fHRV) derived from fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) will reveal a direct, acute steroidal effect on fetal autonomic heart rate regulation.