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
. 2025 Aug 5;29(1):345.
doi: 10.1186/s13054-025-05582-6.

Infrastructure and current practice of blood culture diagnostics in patients with sepsis: teachings and recommendations from the European Sepsis Care Survey

Christian S Scheer  1 , Djillali Annane  2 , Antonio Artigas  3 , Adam Linder  4 , Michael Sander  5 , Oktay Demirkiran  6 , Konrad Reinhart  7 , Evangelos J Giamarellos-Bourboulis  8   9 ; Steering Committee of the European Sepsis Alliance
Affiliations
Review

Infrastructure and current practice of blood culture diagnostics in patients with sepsis: teachings and recommendations from the European Sepsis Care Survey

Christian S Scheer et al. Crit Care. .

Abstract

Introduction: The recently published European Sepsis Care Survey (ESCS) by the European Sepsis Alliance (ESA) showed that the standard-of-care strategies regarding infrastructure and logistics on diagnosis and management of sepsis were beyond what is considered satisfactory. This led to a position statement by the Steering Committee of the ESA.

Methods: A literature search was conducted to compare the compliance with the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines and/or other medical societies reported by the health care practitioners participating in the ESCS regarding first line fluids and vasopressors, biomarkers, continuous availability for microbiology service and antibiotic stewardship team.

Results: In all suggested practices for sepsis care the feedback of the health-care professionals who completed the ESCS showed that the average adherence was more than 80% with two exceptions: availability of microbiology diagnosis limited to 10% and antibiotic stewardship for the selection of the most appropriate antibiotic limited to 65%.

Conclusions: ESA suggests that quality measures are applied across Europe towards the implementation of bundles for early sepsis recognition, antibiotic stewardship for sepsis patients and availability of a continuous microbiology service on a 24-hour basis including weekends for timely diagnosis.

Keywords: Blood cultures; Management; Quality measures; Sepsis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable since this a position manuscript. Consent for publication: All authors have agreed to this publication. Competing interests: Christian S. Scheer discloses funding from European Sepsis Alliance for conducting the European Sepsis Care Survey and funding from Becton and Dickinson for technical realisation of the project. Antonio Artigas discloses a BIOVAP-2 PSP study grant from Abionic; a Septibell study grant from Loop-Dx; Consulting fees from Grifols for Evaluation Albus awards, Fabentech for Scientific advisor of EPIC-CROWN-2 project, Lilly Foundation for Scientific Advisor committee, Aerogen for Spanish Advisory meeting; Board participation ImmuneSep (DSMB Committee), Apeptico (DSMB Committee), Exvastat (Scientific Advisor Board). Konrad Reinhart discloses holding shares from InflaRx NV, which is based in Jena, Germany and listed at NASDQ. He is the Founding President of the Global Sepsis Alliance. Adam Linder has nothing to disclose. E. J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis has received honoraria from Abbott Products Operations AG, bioMérieux Inc, Sobi, and ThermoFisher Brahms GmbH; independent educational grants from Abbott Products Operations, bio Mérieux Inc, Gentian, InCyte, MSD, Novartis, UCB, PHC Europe BV, Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (publ) (Sobi); and funding from the Horizon 2020 European Grants ImmunoSep and RISCinCOVID and the Horizon Health grant EPIC-CROWN-2, Homi-LUNG and POINT (granted to the Hellenic Institute for the Study of Sepsis or to the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). The other authors do not report any conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Evans L, Rhodes A, Alhazzani W, et al. Surviving sepsis campaign: international guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock 2021. Intensive Care Med. 2021;47(11):1181–247. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kadri SS, Lai YL, Warner S, Strich JR, et al. Inappropriate empirical antibiotic therapy for bloodstream infections based on discordant in-vitro susceptibilities: a retrospective cohort analysis of prevalence, predictors, and mortality risk in US hospitals. Lancet Infect Dis. 2021;21(2):241–51. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Van Heuverswyn J, Valik JK, van der Werff DS, Hedberg P, Giske C, Naucler P. Association between time to appropriate antimicrobial treatment and 30-day mortality in patients with bloodstream infections: a retrospective cohort study. Clin Infect Dis. 2023;76(3):469–78. - PMC - PubMed
    1. De Waele JJ, Schouten J, Beovic B, Tabah A, Leone M. Antimicrobial de-escalation as part of antimicrobial stewardship in intensive care: no simple answers to simple questions-a viewpoint of experts. Intensive Care Med. 2020;46(2):236–44. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arulkumaran N, Routledge M, Schlebusch S, Lipman J, Conway Morris A. Antimicrobial-associated harm in critical care: a narrative review. Intensive Care Med. 2020;46(2):225–35. - PMC - PubMed

Substances

LinkOut - more resources