Detecting Sepsis During Pregnancy

摘要

Sepsis during pregnancy is a rare but possibly preventable complication that accounts for 12.7% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States each year. Many clinicians face difficulty in diagnosing sepsis in laboring women fast enough to intervene and save lives. To address this challenge, researchers studied medical records to evaluate the efficacy of screening tools and to identify risk factors. Their results are published in Anesthesia & Analgesia. They found that cho-rioamnionitis and endometritis were the most common causes of sepsis, together accounting for about half of cases. They observed notable differences in the sensitivity and specificity of different sepsis screening tools and concluded that "clinicians need to be vigilant to identify cases of peripar-tum sepsis early in its course and prioritize timely antibiotic therapy." Find the article here: