what is?
Sepsis
... for patients and loved ones
Is sepsis important?
Sepsis is a condition triggered by an infection. In an attempt to overcome the infeciton, our bodies release a battery of chemicals and hormones causing inflammation, and send white blood cells to fight the invading organisms.
An infection is the presence of a microorganism ('germ') in a part of the body where it can cause harm. This harm may be of little consequence, for example, a common cold, or it may be more significant, for example the pain and misery caused by an abscess. In more serious cases, sepsis develops.
When controlled, this process helps to seal off and fight an infection- for example, when you get a splinter. When this response becomes uncontrolled, inflammation affects the entire body and can lead to organ failure: this is known as the sepsis syndrome.
Therefore, sepsis is better thought of as the body's severe response to an infection than a severe infection. Your healthcare professional can identify sepsis using a set of precise diagnostic criteria.
Microorganisms causing sepsis are usually, but not exclusively, bacteria. It is not exactly clear why some people develop sepsis while others do not, but the type of bacteria, previous exposure to antibiotics, presence of other illnesses and genetics may all play a part.
Worldwide, sepsis kills well over 1,400 people every single day. In the U.K alone, we estimate that over 37,000 people die annually.
To put this into perspective, this means that more people die each year from sepsis than from lung cancer, and from breast and bowel cancer combined.
In the USA, around 750,000 people die each year from sepsis. This number is probably mirrored in Europe and Australasia, and greatly exceeded in the developing world.
Sepsis kills millions each year worldwide.
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