United Press International - October 2, 2002

As part of their "Surviving Sepsis" campaign, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the International Sepsis Forum issued the "Barcelona Declaration" at ESICM's annual congress. The declaration calls for improvements in recognition and treatment of the illness in order to reduce the morality rate by 25 percent over the next five years.

Although sepsis is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, "it has largely been ignored for funding in favor of other diseases like heart disease and cancer," Phillip Dellinger -- medical director of critical care medicine for the Cooper Health System in New Jersey and a member of the Society for Critical Care Medicine who took part in the announcement -- told United Press International.

The goal of the campaign is "to increase awareness of sepsis, increase funding for research and make the lay person aware of how devastating this disease can be," he said.

Sepsis is an over-response by the body's immune system to infection that can lead to organ failure and death. Thirty percent of those who develop it die within one month. It commonly develops as a result of infection due to pneumonia, trauma, surgery, burns, cancer or AIDS. The number of sepsis cases is expected to increase by 1.5 percent annually, amounting to an additional 1 million cases in the United States by 2020.

"Sepsis continues to be a very significant problem," Steven Solomon, acting director of the division of healthcare quality promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told UPI. The CDC recently published a report showing U.S. sepsis cases had increased by more than 300 percent in the past 25 years. The healthcare cost of the condition amounts to more than $17 billion in the United States and more than $7 billion in Europe.

One reason for the increase in cases is "the population is getting older and these people are more susceptible to infection and sepsis," Dellinger said.

Also, "more aggressive and more invasive types of procedures are being done, and we're keeping people alive with diseases that would've killed people years ago, so there's more risk for sepsis."

The condition can be treated, Solomon said, but adding, "Once patients develop it their risk of death is much higher." Treating the condition involves antibiotics and some patients may have to be monitored in the intensive care unit.

Graham Ramsay, president of the ESICM, said in a written statement, "Physicians have tried their best to tackle the scourge of sepsis but without greater government funding, education and awareness, their efforts can only have limited success."

Dellinger agreed the lack of funding is part of the problem. Another factor is that the medical community is not paying enough attention to it, he said.

The declaration calls for healthcare professionals to develop a clear definition of sepsis to facilitate early diagnosis, develop guidelines for referring patients to sepsis specialists, and educate physicians about how to manage the condition, ensuring that patients continue to receive care after time in the intensive care unit.

"(A) great deal of our effort is focused on not only preventing sepsis but also preventing conditions that presuppose patients to the condition," CDC's Solomon said. This includes encouraging hospital workers to better manage medical devices and procedures to prevent infection in the first place and educating physicians about techniques that can lower the likelihood that patients will develop sepsis.

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