Prognosis
Approximately 20–35% of people with severe sepsis and 30–70% of people with septic shock die. Lactate is a useful method of determining prognosis with those who have a level greater than 4 mml/L having a mortality of 40% and those with a level of less than 2 mmol/L have a mortality of less than 15%.
There are a number of prognostic stratification systems such as APACHE II and Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis. APACHE II factors in the person's age, underlying condition, and various physiologic variables can yield estimates of the risk of dying of severe sepsis. Of the individual covariates, the severity of underlying disease most strongly influences the risk of death. Septic shock is also a strong predictor of short- and long-term mortality. Case-fatality rates are similar for culture-positive and culture-negative severe sepsis. The Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis (MEDS) score is simpler and useful in the emergency department environment.
Some people may experience severe long-term cognitive decline following an episode of severe sepsis, but the absence of baseline neuropsychological data in most sepsis patients makes the incidence of this difficult to quantify or to study.
Read more about this topic: Sepsis