Sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening illness. Your body's response to a bacterial infection usually causes it. Your immune system goes into overdrive, overwhelming normal processes in your blood. The result is that small blood clots form, blocking blood flow to vital organs. This can lead to organ failure. Babies, old people and those with weakened immune systems are most likely to get sepsis. But even healthy people can become deathly ill from it.

Everything You Need To Know About Sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening systemic response to an infection. This article provides an overview of sepsis, including stages, diagnosis and treatment.

Sepsis Diagnosis

Sepsis and Pregnancy

Sepsis Epidemiology

How Antimicrobial Resistance Amplifies the Burden of Sepsis

Lactate Levels and Sepsis

Sepsis and Influenza

The Stages of Sepsis

Recovering from Sepsis

Sepsis at the Molecular Level

Causes and Symptoms of Sepsis in Newborns

Sepsis Prevention

See more featured articles »

Diagnosis and Treatment of Sepsis in Newborns

Sepsis Pathophysiology

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and Sepsis

Sepsis History

Sepsis Complications and Prevention

The Development of a Sepsis Scoring System in a Murine Model

Sepsis: Identifying the Signs and Administering First Aid

Latest Sepsis News and Research

Survey reveals gaps in acute kidney injury prevention across intensive care

Acute kidney injury (AKI) remains one of the most frequent and clinically significant complications among critically ill patients, affecting nearly half of those admitted to intensive care units (ICUs).

3 Jul 2026

High-dose intravenous vitamin C may improve trauma patient survival outcomes

High doses of intravenous (IV) vitamin C may lower the risks of death and sepsis in trauma patients, as well as shortening hospital stay, suggests a review of the available evidence published online in the journal BMJ Military Health.

30 Jun 2026

Nerve stimulation methods provide safe relief for oropharyngeal dysphagia

Dysphagia, a severe comorbidity of many neurological diseases, often lacks targeted therapies. This critical review assessed the clinical effectiveness and safety of electrical stimulation of cranial nerves for treating dysphagia, including implantable (direct nerve stimulation), minimally invasive (pharyngeal electrical stimulation, PES), and non‑invasive (transcutaneous) approaches.

30 Jun 2026

New strategy restores vancomycin effectiveness against resistant bacteria

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent threats to global health, linked to an estimated 4.7 million deaths worldwide in 2019 alone.

29 Jun 2026

New review highlights TREM-1 receptor as target for inflammatory diseases

A comprehensive review recently published in Current Molecular Pharmacology consolidates the growing evidence surrounding the Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells-1 (TREM-1) as a central amplifier of innate immune responses and a promising therapeutic target for a range of inflammatory diseases.

25 Jun 2026

Gene therapy shows promise against deadly childhood liver disease

A new gene therapy has been used to successfully treat a deadly childhood liver disease using mice that model this disease by researchers at UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

23 Jun 2026

Cambridge researchers discover three distinct severe pneumonia biological subtypes

Cambridge researchers have shown that severe pneumonia has three different subtypes, helping explain why some patients in intensive care units (ICUs) recover from their illness faster than others, while for other patients the disease can be life-threatening.

23 Jun 2026

Optimized proximity labeling platform tracks cellular protein communication networks

The body's organs are in constant communication. Fat tissue tells the liver when to store or release energy, the immune system signals localized inflammation, and thousands of proteins carry these messages to organs throughout the body.

22 Jun 2026

Gene therapy successfully treats deadly childhood liver disease in mice

A new gene therapy has been used to successfully treat a deadly childhood liver disease using mice that model this disease by researchers at UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

19 Jun 2026

WHO Issues Comprehensive Guidelines On Filovirus Disease, Including Ebola And Marburg Disease

As the Democratic Republic of the Congo is battling an Ebola disease outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released its first comprehensive guidelines for the clinical management of filovirus disease which include all types of Ebola and Marburg viruses.

18 Jun 2026

Deep learning identifies novel compounds against antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea

With tens of millions of annual cases, gonorrhea is the second most frequently reported sexually transmitted infection (STI). Alone in the U.S., over 600,000 cases are reported each year.

17 Jun 2026

New pico-calorimeter detects antibiotic resistance via direct heat traces

When living cells grow, divide, or respond to drugs, they give off tiny amounts of heat that offer information about what the cells are doing. But since these heat signals are so vanishingly small, they have been traditionally impossible to measure directly.

17 Jun 2026

Metformin reduces long COVID risk according to ACTIV-6 clinical trial

New findings from the ACTIV-6 randomized clinical trial provide important confirmation of prior clinical trial results that metformin, a widely available and inexpensive medication with an established safety record, reduced the risk of clinician-diagnosed long COVID when started during acute COVID-19 infection.

11 Jun 2026

Remote monitoring does not beat usual care for sepsis patients

Remote monitoring isn't a panacea for reducing readmissions across all conditions - and for some patients, clinicians should proceed with caution, clinical trial results published today in JAMA Network Open suggest.

11 Jun 2026

GSV hospitals achieve substantially higher delirium screening in older surgical patients

There is a stark gap in how often hospitals screen older adults for postoperative delirium, with verified geriatric surgery programs screening nearly every patient while non-accredited programs screen just half, according to new findings published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

10 Jun 2026

Researchers find flaw in AI models for sepsis treatment

AI is already boosting positive outcomes in healthcare and holds promise for delivering many more. It is important, however, that deployment of AI tools - especially in a life-or-death healthcare setting - proceeds at a thoughtful and measured pace, cautions Shengpu Tang, assistant professor of computer science at Emory University.

8 Jun 2026

Infections pose major but overlooked risks in people with diabetes

Infections should be considered a "health hazard" in people living with diabetes, with experts warning that current clinical guidelines fail to reflect a substantial but under-recognized burden of illness, hospitalization and death.

7 Jun 2026

Large clinical trial shows both common septic shock fluids are equal

A randomized clinical trial conducted across five countries in 47 pediatric emergency departments, including Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, established that both commonly used IV fluids for treating septic shock – balanced crystalloid fluid and 0.9% saline – are equally safe and effective. Results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

5 Jun 2026

Antibiotic-free therapy seeks to prevent newborn meningitis by blocking E. coli

Newborn meningitis is one of the most dangerous childhood infections. It is often life-threatening and can cause serious and lasting damage, including developmental problems, in the children who survive.

1 Jun 2026

Gut microbiota may determine severity of life-threatening sepsis infections

Why do some people recover easily from bacterial infections while others rapidly deteriorate into life-threatening sepsis? According to a new study, the answer may lie not only in the invading pathogen itself, but also in the microorganisms already living inside the gut.

28 May 2026