Sepsis or septicemia is a process that includes symptoms such as fever, chills, aches and pains, and high heart rate, among others. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this pathology occurs 80% of the time outside of hospital environments and 7 out of 10 patients who suffer from it have previous illnesses.
This is why it is essential, especially among healthcare personnel, to identify this clinical complication before it causes the death of the patient. Do you know the symptoms and risk factors? In this space we tell you everything you need to know about this dangerous disease.
About septicemia and its frequency
To understand its severity, this pathology must be framed in a global framework, before knowing its operation and clinical picture. Although the name may seem strange to us, its frequency is higher than we can imagine at first.
To put things in perspective, it is important to make known that various studies have placed sepsis or septicemia as the tenth leading cause of death in humans worldwide. In the United States, for example, more than 700,000 cases are registered annually, of which 215,000 end in the death of the patient.
We go further, since other bibliographic sources estimate that it causes around 30 to 50 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Although it can affect people of all ages, there are some who are more likely to suffer from it. The risk groups most likely to suffer from sepsis or septicemia are the following:
People 65 years of age or older.
Newborns and babies less than one year old.
People with a weakened immune system.
Patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes.
As we can suppose, we are facing a pathology with high morbidity (degree of health that a person loses when suffering it) and mortality. But how does septicemia occur? We will explain it to you below.
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