Sepsis and Septic Shock Summary

From episode 170 in the ECC feed. With Dr Claire Sharpe.

Many of the signs in this episode are things you probably know, but I’ve not heard them packaged as concisely in one place as in this conversation. Here are a couple of lightbulb moments around sepsis that I think are important to know, as explained by Claire:  

• Definitions: 

  • Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response to infection. So a patient with an abnormal temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, +/- white blood cell count etc,  in combination with a confirmed or suspected infection.

    • Note that in human medicine they’ve changed the definition to A dysregulated host response to infection accompanied by organ dysfunction.

    • This means that many of your patients are septic. Like that parvo puppy (yes, viral infection counts), the pyo, the pneumonia patient, etc, etc.

  • Septic shock: A patient that is systemically unwell from an infection, and they also have hypotension that is not responsive to fluid therapy.

• The reason I think it’s important to highlight this is so that we recognise which of our patients fit these definitions early on, and deal with them in a timely fashion. Like - now, not after morning consults, or that dental. This is because: 

  • Studies have shown that every hour that you delay the administration of antibiotics increases the mortality by around 7%!

  • “Every minute makes a difference for these patients . If you do not have the time or resources to adequately manage these patients then you need to refer them sooner rather than later, if you have that option.”

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