IntroductionIn early sepsis stages, optimal treatment could contribute to prevention of progression to severe sepsis. Therefore, we investigated if there was an association between time to antibiotics and relevant clinical outcomes in hospitalized emergency department (ED) patients with mild to severe sepsis stages.MethodsThis is a prospective multicenter study in three Dutch EDs. Patients were stratified into three categories of illness severity, as assessed by the predisposition, infection, response, and organ failure (PIRO) score: PIRO score 1 to 7, 8 to 14 and >14 points, reflected low, intermediate, and high illness severity, respectively. Consecutive hospitalized ED patients with a suspected infection who were treated with intravenous antibiotics were eligible to participate in the study. The primary outcome measure was the number of surviving days outside the hospital at day 28 which was used as an inverse measure of hospital length of stay (LOS). The secondary outcome measure was 28-day mortality, taking into account the time to mortality.Multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to estimate the association between time to antibiotics and the primary and secondary outcome measures corrected for confounders, including appropriateness of antibiotics and initial ED resuscitation, in three categories of illness severity.ResultsOf the 1,168 included patients, 112 died (10%), while 85% and 95% received antibiotics within three and six hours, respectively. No association between time to antibiotics and surviving days outside the hospital or mortality was found. Only in PIRO group 1 to 7 was delayed administration of antibiotics (>3 hours) associated with an increase in surviving days outside the hospital at day 28 (hazard ratio: 1.46, 95% confidence interval: 1.05 to 2.02 after correction for potential confounders).ConclusionsIn ED patients with mild to severe sepsis who received antibiotics within six hours after ED presentation, a reduction in time to antibiotics was not found to be associated with an improvement in relevant clinical outcomes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13054-015-0936-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

BackgroundSepsis recognition in older emergency department (ED) patients is difficult due to atypical symptom presentation. We therefore investigated whether the prognostic and discriminative performance of the five most commonly used disease severity scores were appropriate for risk stratification of older ED sepsis patients (≥70 years) compared to a younger control group (<70 years).MethodsThis was an observational multi-centre study using an existing database in which ED patients who were hospitalized with a suspected infection were prospectively included. Patients were stratified by age < 70 and ≥70 years. We assessed the association with in-hospital mortality (primary outcome) and the area under the curve (AUC) with receiver operator characteristics of the Predisposition, Infection, Response, Organ dysfunction (PIRO), quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA), Mortality in ED Sepsis (MEDS), and the Modified and National Early Warning (MEWS and NEWS) scores.ResultsIn-hospital mortality was 9.5% ((95%-CI); 7.4–11.5) in the 783 included older patients, and 4.6% (3.6–5.7) in the 1497 included younger patients. In contrast to younger patients, disease severity scores in older patients associated poorly with mortality. The AUCs of all disease severity scores were poor and ranged from 0.56 to 0.64 in older patients, significantly lower than the good AUC range from 0.72 to 0.86 in younger patients. The MEDS had the best AUC (0.64 (0.57–0.71)) in older patients. In older and younger patients, the newly proposed qSOFA score (Sepsis 3.0) had a lower AUC than the PIRO score (sepsis 2.0).ConclusionThe prognostic and discriminative performance of the five most commonly used disease severity scores was poor and less useful for risk stratification of older ED sepsis patients.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13049-017-0436-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The lactate ≥2 mmol/L threshold-based LqSOFA score performs better than qSOFA alone in identifying risk of adverse outcomes in ED patients with suspected sepsis.

Sepsis quality improvement programmes should incorporate ED patients in earlier stages of sepsis given the potential to reduce in-hospital mortality among this population.

ObjectiveEmergency department (ED) patients hospitalised with a suspected infection have an increased risk for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). This study aims to identify independent predictors of MACE after hospital admission which could be used for identification of high-risk patients who may benefit from preventive strategies.SettingDutch tertiary care centre and urban hospital.ParticipantsConsecutive, hospitalised, ED patients with a suspected infection.DesignThis was a secondary analysis using an existing database in which consecutive, hospitalised, ED patients with a suspected infection were prospectively enrolled. Potential independent predictors, including illness severity, as assessed by the Predisposition, Infection, Response, Organ failure (PIRO) score, and classic cardiac risk factors were analysed by multivariable binary logistic regression. Prognostic and discriminative performance of the model was quantified by the Hosmer-Lemeshow test and receiver operator characteristics with area under the curve (AUC) analyses, respectively. Maximum sensitivity and specificity for identification of MACE were calculated.Primary outcomeMACE within 90 days after hospital admission.Results36 (2.1%) of the 1728 included patients developed MACE <90 days after ED presentation. Independent predictors of MACE were the RO components of the PIRO score, reflecting acute organ failure, with a corrected OR (OR (95% CI) 1.1 (1.0 to 1.3) per point increase), presence of atrial fibrillation/flutter; OR 3.9 (2.0 to 7.7) and >2 classic cardiovascular risk factors; 2.2 (1.1 to 4.3). The AUC was 0.773, and the goodness-of-fit test had a p value of 0.714. These predictors identified MACE with 75% sensitivity and 70% specificity.ConclusionsBesides the classical cardiovascular risk factors, atrial fibrillation and signs of acute organ failure were independent risk factors of MACE in ED patients hospitalised with a suspected infection. Future studies should investigate whether preventive measures like antiplatelet therapy should be initialised in hospitalised ED patients with suspected infection and high risk for MACE.