Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar-Apr;34(2):97-109.
doi: 10.1111/vec.13359. Epub 2024 Feb 13.

Defining sepsis in small animals

Stefano Cortellini  1 , Amy E DeClue  2 , Massimo Giunti  3 , Robert Goggs  4 , Kate Hopper  5 , Julie M Menard  6 , Rodrigo C Rabelo  7 , Elizabeth A Rozanski  8 , Claire R Sharp  9 , Deborah C Silverstein  10 , Virginia Sinnott-Stutzman  11 , Giacomo Stanzani  12
Affiliations
Review

Defining sepsis in small animals

Stefano Cortellini et al. J Vet Emerg Crit Care (San Antonio). 2024 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Objective: To discuss the definitions of sepsis in human and veterinary medicine.

Design: International, multicenter position statement on the need for consensus definitions of sepsis in veterinary medicine.

Setting: Veterinary private practice and university teaching hospitals.

Animals: Dogs and cats.

Interventions: None.

Measurements and main results: Sepsis is a life-threatening condition associated with the body's response to an infection. In human medicine, sepsis has been defined by consensus on 3 occasions, most recently in 2016. In veterinary medicine, there is little uniformity in how sepsis is defined and no consensus on how to identify it clinically. Most publications rely on modified criteria derived from the 1991 and 2001 human consensus definitions. There is a divergence between the human and veterinary descriptions of sepsis and no consensus on how to diagnose the syndrome. This impedes research, hampers the translation of pathophysiology insights to the clinic, and limits our abilities to optimize patient care. It may be time to formally define sepsis in veterinary medicine to help the field move forward. In this narrative review, we present a synopsis of prior attempts to define sepsis in human and veterinary medicine, discuss developments in our understanding, and highlight some criticisms and shortcomings of existing schemes.

Conclusions: This review is intended to serve as the foundation of current efforts to establish a consensus definition for sepsis in small animals and ultimately generate evidence-based criteria for its recognition in veterinary clinical practice.

Keywords: canine; feline; immune response; infection; systemic inflammatory response syndrome.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Geroulanos S, Douka ET. Historical perspective of the word “sepsis”. Intensive Care Med. 2006; , 32(12):2077‐2077.
    1. Vincent JL, Abraham E. The last 100 years of sepsis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2006;173(3):256‐263.
    1. Berg D, Gerlach H. Recent advances in understanding and managing sepsis. F1000Res. 2018;7:F1000.
    1. Singer M, Deutschman CS, Seymour CW, et al. The Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis‐3). JAMA. 2016;315(8):801‐810.
    1. Vincent JL, Rello J, Marshall J, et al. International study of the prevalence and outcomes of infection in intensive care units. JAMA. 2009;302(21):2323‐2329.

LinkOut - more resources