Sepsis: Sensitivity and Specificity

Introduction: Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response (SIRS) due to a known or presumed infection. Various serologic markers have been proposed to distinguish sepsis from SIRS due to other causes. See also Mortality in Sepsis (has definitions in that intro).

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Tags: Infection Tag this Diagnosis.

The sensitivity and specificity of findings for Sepsis are listed below. See the left navigation bar to change the display.

Pre-Test Probability (Prevalence): %.	Post-Test Probability (Predictive Value): %.	Switch to display mode.
Note that calculating probabilities from more than one** finding is inherently inaccurate because findings are not independent. (For example, using two positive findings that share a common pathogenesis is likely to overestimate the true probability.)

Sensitive and Specific Findings
Finding	Result	Sensitivity	Specificity
[ + ] TREM-1	+ 0 -	96%	89%
ICU pts with clinically suspected infection and >=2 criteria of SIRS Study: Ann Intern Med 2004 Jul 6;141(1):9-15. PMID 15238365

Poorly Diagnostic Findings
Finding	Result	Sensitivity	Specificity
[ + ] Elevated Procalcitonin	+ 0 -	71%	71%
Study: Lancet Infect Dis. 2007 Mar;7(3):210-7. PMID 17317602