None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Early sepsis diagnosis is challenging for clinicians due to the non-specific nature of symptoms and the cross-over between clinical signs and symptoms of sepsis and those of other mild self-limited infections. Current diagnostic criteria for sepsis in children perform poorly, causing clinicians to rely on their own experience and judgement to diagnose sepsis. They must balance the risk of over-treatment, un-necessary hospitalisation, and overuse of broad spectrum antibiotics with the risk of delayed treatment, which is a known contributor to poor outcome and death from sepsis. The lack of clear diagnostic criteria also results in variable estimates of sepsis prevalence, severity, outcomes, cost, difficulty benchmarking care, and inconsistent enrolment strategies for clinical trials. The Biomarkers in Sepsis (BASIS) study will identify novel biomarkers (protein and mRNA) for early sepsis diagnosis and risk stratification. These will have the potential to save lives through commercialisation into point-of-care tests.
Interventions
Children with suspected sepsis will be identified by screening through emergency department attendances. Participants will have no direct involvement, the study is collecting data retrospectively from the medical records and correlating biomarkers obtained from discard blood samples. Data that will be extracted from the medical record includes demographic data, severity of illness, and outcome. Only data from the index hospitalisation will be included.
Sponsors
Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
No minimum to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
• Aged <18 years; AND • Admission to hospital; AND • Treatment with intravenous (IV)/ intramuscular (IM)/ intraosseous (IO) antibiotics pre-hospital or in ED; AND • Circulatory support (fluid bolus or inotropic support) pre-hospital or in ED OR Admission diagnosis of suspected sepsis, septicaemia or septic shock Fluid bolus defined as equal to or greater than 5ml/kg or 500mls administered over less than or equal to 30 minutes to treat impaired perfusion (not dehydration) Inotropic support defined as intravenous infusion of inotrope/vasopressor
Exclusion criteria
a) Patients not initially seen in the Emergency Department (i.e. transferred to the ward including ICU) b) Patients presenting with trauma who receive antibiotics for prophylaxis or circulatory support for blood loss c) Patients transferred from another hospital if > 24 hours since presentation d) Patients transferred from another hospital ward to ED
Outcome results
None listed