Cited by 28,250Sepsis Diagnosis and TreatmentInflammation biomarkers and pathwaysAcute Kidney Injury Research

The third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (Sepsis-3).

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Singer, Mervyn, Deutschman, Clifford S., Seymour, Christopher Warren, Shankar-Hari, Manu, Annane, Djillali, Bauer, Michael, Bellomo, Rinaldo, Bernard, Gordon R. +11 more·2016·JAMA

Abstract

IMPORTANCE: Definitions of sepsis and septic shock were last revised in 2001. Considerable advances have since been made into the pathobiology (changes in organ function, morphology, cell biology, biochemistry, immunology, and circulation), management, and epidemiology of sepsis, suggesting the need for reexamination. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and, as needed, update definitions for sepsis and septic shock. PROCESS: A task force (n = 19) with expertise in sepsis pathobiology, clinical trials, and epidemiology was convened by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Definitions and clinical criteria were generated through meetings, Delphi processes, analysis of electronic health record databases, and voting, followed by circulation to international professional societies, requesting peer review and endorsement (by 31 societies listed in the Acknowledgment). KEY FINDINGS FROM EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Limitations of previous definitions included an excessive focus on inflammation, the misleading model that sepsis follows a continuum through severe sepsis to shock, and inadequate specificity and sensitivity of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria. Multiple definitions and terminologies are currently in use for sepsis, septic shock, and organ dysfunction, leading to discrepancies in reported incidence and observed mortality. The task force concluded the term severe sepsis was redundant. RECOMMENDATIONS: Sepsis should be defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. For clinical operationalization, organ dysfunction can be represented by an increase in the Sequential [Sepsis-related] Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score of 2 points or more, which is associated with an in-hospital mortality greater than 10%. Septic shock should be defined as a subset of sepsis in which particularly profound circulatory, cellular, and metabolic abnormalities are associated with a greater risk of mortality than with sepsis alone. Patients with septic shock can be clinically identified by a vasopressor requirement to maintain a mean arterial pressure of 65 mm Hg or greater and serum lactate level greater than 2 mmol/L (>18 mg/dL) in the absence of hypovolemia. This combination is associated with hospital mortality rates greater than 40%. In out-of-hospital, emergency department, or general hospital ward settings, adult patients with suspected infection can be rapidly identified as being more likely to have poor outcomes typical of sepsis if they have at least 2 of the following clinical criteria that together constitute a new bedside clinical score termed quickSOFA (qSOFA): respiratory rate of 22/min or greater, altered mentation, or systolic blood pressure of 100 mm Hg or less. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These updated definitions and clinical criteria should replace previous definitions, offer greater consistency for epidemiologic studies and clinical trials, and facilitate earlier recognition and more timely management of patients with sepsis or at risk of developing sepsis.

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Crossref · 10.1001/jama.2016.0287

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  • Most models reported AUC values exceeding 0.84, with some attaining up to 0.89 for early sepsis prediction.

    “Most models reported AUC values exceeding 0.84, with some attaining up to 0.89 for early sepsis prediction [7, 12, 13, 17, 19, 22].”

    From Explainable AI for critical care: a systematic review of interpretable models for sepsis and ICU mortality prediction (2026) · cites this paper as [7]

    In Results/Recommendations, ‘Screening for Patients Likely to Have Sepsis’ (page unavailable), the reported model has an AUROC of 0.81 outside the ICU and 0.66 inside it—not above 0.84. ‘Clinical Criteria to Identify Patients With Sepsis’ (page unavailable) reports AUROCs of 0.64–0.79 for predicting hospital mortality in patients with suspected infection, rather than 0.84–0.89 for early sepsis prediction. (LLM, conf=0.87)

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  • These interpretability strategies enabled the identification of key physiological variables driving model predictions, such as respiratory rate (RR), Glasgow Coma Scale, mean arterial pressure (MAP), lactate, creatinine, heart rate (HR), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), body temperature, platelet count, and urine output.

    “These interpretability strategies enabled the identification of key physiological variables driving model predictions, such as respiratory rate (RR), Glasgow Coma Scale, mean arterial pressure (MAP), lactate, creatinine, heart rate (HR), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), body temperature, platelet count, and urine output [7, 12–18, 22, 24, 25, 39].”

    From Explainable AI for critical care: a systematic review of interpretable models for sepsis and ICU mortality prediction (2026) · cites this paper as [7]

    The Screening for Patients Likely to Have Sepsis section (page unavailable) identifies respiratory rate and Glasgow Coma Scale as variables in a predictive clinical model; the Variable Definitions and Septic Shock sections also discuss several other listed measures. The paper does not say that interpretability strategies identified variables driving model predictions, and it does not substantiate the full list as model-driving variables. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • There are challenges in estimating maternal sepsis burden due to differences in its definitions.

    “However, there are challenges in estimating maternal sepsis burden due to differences in its definitions [9, 10].”

    From The aetiology and antimicrobial resistance of bacterial maternal infections in Sub-Saharan Africa—a systematic review and meta-analysis (2024) · cites this paper as [9]

    The Variable Definitions section describes inconsistent sepsis terminology and coding, and the Implications section says standardized definitions are crucial to accurately appreciating the scale of sepsis. These passages support the general difficulty of estimating sepsis burden, but the paper does not address maternal sepsis specifically. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The Sepsis-3 consensus framework for sepsis coding and research recommends using concomitant orders for blood cultures and antibiotics within a specified period to define suspected infection.

    “The Sepsis-3 consensus framework for sepsis coding and research recommends using concomitant orders for blood cultures and antibiotics within a specified period to define suspected infection.4”

    From Multicenter Prospective Validation of an Updated Proprietary Sepsis Prediction Model (2026) · cites this paper as [4]

    In Results/Recommendations, the paper describes a research cohort in which suspected infection was identified by cultures being sampled and antibiotics being received. It does not recommend concomitant orders within a specified period as a definition for coding and research; the Implications section instead discusses proxies such as antibiotic commencement or clinical probability of infection. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection.

    “Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection (1).”

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Authors
Singer, M., Deutschman, C. S., Seymour, C. W., Shankar-Hari, M., Annane, D., Bauer, M., Bellomo, R., Bernard, G. R., Chiche, J.-D., Coopersmith, C. M., Hotchkiss, R. S., Levy, M. M., Marshall, J. C., Martin, G. S., Opal, S. M., Rubenfeld, G. D., van der Poll, T., Vincent, J.-L., & Angus, D. C.
Affiliations
  • University College London (GB)
  • Feinstein Institute for Medical Research (US)
  • University of Pittsburgh (US)
  • Department of Critical Care Medicine, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
  • Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (FR)
  • Jena University Hospital (DE)
  • Austin Hospital (AU)
  • Vanderbilt University (US)
  • Hôpital Cochin (FR)
  • Emory University (US)
  • Washington University in St. Louis (US)
  • Brown University (US)
  • University of Toronto (CA)
  • Grady Memorial Hospital (US)
  • Sunnybrook Health Science Centre (CA)
  • Department of Infectious Diseases, Academisch Medisch Centrum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Erasmus Hospital (BE)
Corresponding author
Deutschman, Clifford S.
Venue
JAMA
Published
2016-02-23
Volume
315
Issue
8
Pages
801
ISSN
  • 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
  • 0098-7484
OpenAlex
W2280404143
Cited by
28,250
References
46
Citations by year
2026: 3254 · 2025: 3509 · 2024: 3575 · 2023: 3271 · 2022: 3046 · 2021: 3142 · 2020: 2745 · 2019: 2267 · 2018: 1625 · 2017: 1261 · 2016: 497 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 4
FWCI
1766.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • JAMA (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Pure Amsterdam UMC (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • American Thoracic Society
  • AstraZeneca
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • CSL Behring
  • European Respiratory Society
  • American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
  • Wellcome Trust
  • European Resuscitation Council
  • European Commission
  • Intensive Care Society
  • Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
  • European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
  • Universitätsklinikum Jena
  • European Society of Intensive Care Medicine
  • InflaRx
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (K23GM104022, R01GM044118)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Sepsis Diagnosis and Treatment
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Inflammation biomarkers and pathways
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Nephrology › Acute Kidney Injury Research
Keywords
sepsis, septic shock, Sepsis-3, sepsis definitions, organ dysfunction, SOFA score, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, lactate, vasopressors, sepsis mortality, sepsis incidence, severe sepsis, Delphi consensus, clinical criteria
MeSH terms
Blood Pressure, Delphi Technique, Humans, Lactates, Terminology as Topic, Sensitivity and Specificity, Shock, Septic, Vasoconstrictor Agents, Biomarkers, Hospital Mortality, Peer Review, Research, Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, Sepsis, Advisory Committees, International Classification of Diseases, Respiratory Rate, Organ Dysfunction Scores

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