Over the last three decades, critical care and emergency medicine have made great progress in recognising and managing sepsis through early recognition and protocolised resuscitation. For initial sepsis management, with time-sensitive source control and supportive care, a one-size-fits-all approach is arguably optimal.
However, as we transition from an era focused on sepsis recognition to one aspiring to precision sepsis therapy,1 limitations in our sepsis definition become apparent. The relatively simple, physiology-derived Sepsis-3 criteria use organ failure as a surrogate for a dysregulated host response.
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine published a clinical update in Critical Care on 16 Mar 2026.
The item focuses on The host response in sepsis: can it be quantified?.
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