Epidemiology of sepsis in Norway in 1999.docVIP

Available online /content/8/4/R180 Research Open Access August 2004 Vol 8 No 4 Epidemiology of sepsis in Norway in 1999 Hans Flaatten ICU Medical Director, Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen Norway Corresponding author: Hans Flaatten, hkfl@helse-bergen.no Received: 21 January 2004 Revisions requested: 12 March 2004 Revisions received: 13 April 2004 Accepted: 20 April 2004 Critical Care 2004, 8:R180-R184 (DOI 10.1186/cc2867) This article is online at: /content/8/4/R180 ? 2004 Flaatten et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the articles original URL. Published: 14 May 2004 Abstract Introduction Sepsis and severe sepsis are asociated with high hospital mortality. Little is known about the occurrence of sepsis in general hospital populations. The goal of the present study was to reveal the epidemiology of sepsis in Norwegian hospitals over 1 year. Methods Patients admitted to all Norwegian hospitals during 1999 (n = 700,107) were analyzed by searching the database of the Norwegian Patient Registry for markers of sepsis, using International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes for sepsis and severe infections. In patients with such diagnoses, demographic data, hospital outcome data and ICD-10 codes for organ dysfunction were also retrieved. Sepsis was further classified as primary or secondary, and severe (sepsis with vital organ dysfunction) or nonsevere. The age-adjusted mortality rate, and the sepsis rates for all hospital admissions and in the Norwegian population were calculated. Results A total of 6665 patients were classified as having sepsis, and of these 2121 (31.8%) had severe sepsis. The most frequent failing organ system was the circulatory system, and 1562 had septic shock. Mortality increased from