Clinical Trials for the Treatment of Sepsis

This overview of the epidemiology, monitoring and treatment of sepsis provides a detailed review of the research literature, recommendations for the monitoring and treatment of sepsis patients, and an outline of the design of future clinical trials.

---

The incidence of sepsis is increasing as new medical and surgical technologies are applied to an ageing patient population. The treatment of sepsis emphasizes strategies to avoid multiple organ dysfunction, with particular attention to establishing source control, and then modifies the host's response to the excessive inflammatory response which characterizes sepsis. This is a comprehensive review of the epidemiology, monitoring and treatment of sepsis. Using an "evidence-based" approach, it comprises an extensive review of the literature on sepsis, provides up-to-date recommendations for monitoring and treating sepsis patients, and concludes with explicit recommendations for the design and monitoring of future clinical trials.