A third of patient deaths in hospitals include a sepsis diagnosis, according to the CDC, but the disease is widely misdiagnosed — and physicians' assessments vary widely, according to a study published Dec. 5 in the Journal of Personalized Medicine.
Sepsis diagnoses are often delayed or incorrect because there isn't a leading diagnostic test and the disease's "clinical presentation … is often nonspecific," the study's authors wrote, adding that "early diagnosis is largely dependent upon provider suspicion, intuition and clinical judgment."
In the study, 26 sepsis experts from multiple specialties, including emergency medicine, critical care, laboratory medicine, infectious disease and pharmacy, evaluated sepsis risk in two hypothetical cases.
The assessments varied greatly, with clinicians' answers ranging between 10% and 90% in sepsis risk for the same case. The authors concluded a high need for better sepsis diagnostic tools.