Criteria for Pediatric Sepsis-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by the Pediatric Sepsis Definition Taskforce.

2021

2021 Oct 06

1530-0293

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>To determine the associations of demographic, clinical, laboratory, organ dysfunction, and illness severity variable values with: 1) sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock in children with infection and 2) multiple organ dysfunction or death in children with sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock.</p>

<p><strong>DATA SOURCES: </strong>MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched from January 1, 2004, and November 16, 2020.</p>

<p><strong>STUDY SELECTION: </strong>Case-control studies, cohort studies, and randomized controlled trials in children greater than or equal to 37-week-old postconception to 18 years with suspected or confirmed infection, which included the terms "sepsis," "septicemia," or "septic shock" in the title or abstract.</p>

<p><strong>DATA EXTRACTION: </strong>Study characteristics, patient demographics, clinical signs or interventions, laboratory values, organ dysfunction measures, and illness severity scores were extracted from eligible articles. Random-effects meta-analysis was performed.</p>

<p><strong>DATA SYNTHESIS: </strong>One hundred and six studies met eligibility criteria of which 81 were included in the meta-analysis. Sixteen studies (9,629 patients) provided data for the sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock outcome and 71 studies (154,674 patients) for the mortality outcome. In children with infection, decreased level of consciousness and higher Pediatric Risk of Mortality scores were associated with sepsis/severe sepsis. In children with sepsis/severe sepsis/septic shock, chronic conditions, oncologic diagnosis, use of vasoactive/inotropic agents, mechanical ventilation, serum lactate, platelet count, fibrinogen, procalcitonin, multi-organ dysfunction syndrome, Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction score, Pediatric Index of Mortality-3, and Pediatric Risk of Mortality score each demonstrated significant and consistent associations with mortality. Pooled mortality rates varied among high-, upper middle-, and lower middle-income countries for patients with sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock (p &lt; 0.0001).</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Strong associations of several markers of organ dysfunction with the outcomes of interest among infected and septic children support their inclusion in the data validation phase of the Pediatric Sepsis Definition Taskforce.</p>

10.1097/CCM.0000000000005294

Crit Care Med

34612847

Pediatric Sepsis Definition-A Systematic Review Protocol by the Pediatric Sepsis Definition Taskforce.

2020

e0123

2020 Jun

2639-8028

<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Sepsis is responsible for a substantial proportion of global childhood morbidity and mortality. However, evidence demonstrates major inaccuracies in the use of the term "sepsis" in clinical practice, coding, and research. Current and previous definitions of sepsis have been developed using expert consensus but the specific criteria used to identify children with sepsis have not been rigorously evaluated. Therefore, as part of the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Pediatric Sepsis Definition Taskforce, we will conduct a systematic review to synthesize evidence on individual factors, clinical criteria, or illness severity scores that may be used to identify children with infection who have or are at high risk of developing sepsis-associated organ dysfunction and separately those factors, criteria, and scores that may be used to identify children with sepsis who are at high risk of progressing to multiple organ dysfunction or death.</p>

<p><strong>Data Sources: </strong>We will identify eligible studies by searching the following databases: MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials.</p>

<p><strong>Study Selection: </strong>We will include all randomized trials and cohort studies published between January 1, 2004, and March 16, 2020.</p>

<p><strong>Data Extraction: </strong>Data extraction will include information related to study characteristics, population characteristics, clinical criteria, and outcomes.</p>

<p><strong>Data Synthesis: </strong>We will calculate sensitivity and specificity of each criterion for predicting sepsis and conduct a meta-analysis if the data allow. We will also provide pooled estimates of overall hospital mortality.</p>

<p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The potential risk factors, clinical criteria, and illness severity scores from this review which identify patients with infection who are at high risk of developing sepsis-associated organ dysfunction and/or progressing to multiple organ dysfunction or death will be used to inform the next steps of the Pediatric Sepsis Definition Taskforce.</p>

10.1097/CCE.0000000000000123

Crit Care Explor

32695992

A National Approach to Pediatric Sepsis Surveillance.

2019

2019 Nov 27

1098-4275

<p>Pediatric sepsis is a major public health concern, and robust surveillance tools are needed to characterize its incidence, outcomes, and trends. The increasing use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States creates an opportunity to conduct reliable, pragmatic, and generalizable population-level surveillance using routinely collected clinical data rather than administrative claims or resource-intensive chart review. In 2015, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recruited sepsis investigators and representatives of key professional societies to develop an approach to adult sepsis surveillance using clinical data recorded in EHRs. This led to the creation of the adult sepsis event definition, which was used to estimate the national burden of sepsis in adults and has been adapted into a tool kit to facilitate widespread implementation by hospitals. In July 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened a new multidisciplinary pediatric working group to tailor an EHR-based national sepsis surveillance approach to infants and children. Here, we describe the challenges specific to pediatric sepsis surveillance, including evolving clinical definitions of sepsis, accommodation of age-dependent physiologic differences, identifying appropriate EHR markers of infection and organ dysfunction among infants and children, and the need to account for children with medical complexity and the growing regionalization of pediatric care. We propose a preliminary pediatric sepsis event surveillance definition and outline next steps for refining and validating these criteria so that they may be used to estimate the national burden of pediatric sepsis and support site-specific surveillance to complement ongoing initiatives to improve sepsis prevention, recognition, and treatment.</p>

10.1542/peds.2019-1790

Pediatrics

31776196