Connect
MJA
MJA

Sepsis incidence and mortality are underestimated in Australian intensive care unit administrative data

David Pilcher, Sue Huckson and Peter Hicks
Med J Aust 2019; 210 (4): . || doi: 10.5694/mja2.50019
Published online: 4 March 2019

TO THE EDITOR: We congratulate Heldens and colleagues1 for their work investigating the prevalence and mortality of sepsis within a tertiary hospital intensive care unit (ICU). As the authors rightly point out in their article and podcast, this requires careful screening, consistent diagnostic criteria, and considerable time and effort.


  • 1 The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, VIC
  • 2 Centre for Outcome and Resource Evaluation, Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, Melbourne, VIC
  • 3 Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC
  • 4 Wellington Regional Hospital, Wellington, New Zealand


Correspondence: d.pilcher@alfred.org.au

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

  • 1. Heldens M, Schout M, Hammond NE, et al. Sepsis incidence and mortality are underestimated in Australian intensive care unit administrative data. Med J Aust 2018; 209: 255–260. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2018/209/6/sepsis-incidence-and-mortality-are-underestimated-australian-intensive-care-unit
  • 2. Raith EP, Udy AA, Bailey M, et al. Prognostic accuracy of the SOFA score, SIRS criteria, and qSOFA score for in‐hospital mortality among adults with suspected infection admitted to the intensive care unit. JAMA 2017; 317: 290–300.
  • 3. Singer M, Deutschman CS, Seymour CW, et al. The third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (Sepsis‐3). JAMA 2016; 315: 801–810.

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.