Speaking of sepsis: semantics, syntax, and slang

Frontiers in Medicine

Medicine

Tim J. J. Inglis¹ 

[1] Western Australian Country Health Service, Perth, WA, Australia;Schools of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia;Departments of Microbiology, PathWest Laboratory Medicine WA, QEII Medical Centre, and Fiona Stanley Hospital, Nedlands, WA, Australia;

关键词: sepsis;    bacteraemia;    bacterial bloodstream infection;    diagnosis;    laboratory medicine;    machine learning and AI;    immunophenotyping;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2023.1250499

 received in 2023-06-30, accepted in 2023-09-15,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Medical language is in a constant state of evolution. Its grammar and vocabulary are not fixed by rigid rules. The interdisciplinary field of sepsis has become a meeting point for new insights arising from advances in systems biology, epidemiology, mechanistic understandings of disease process and antimicrobial interventions. This convergence has gained from our recent experience of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 and possibilities inferred from emerging information technology. Biomedical descriptors have diverged along disciplinary lines creating an unfortunate disconnect between clinical and laboratory-based terminology. The resulting confusion between clinically determined sepsis and laboratory verified bloodstream infection raises practical questions that affect daily operational processes in the ward, clinic and laboratory. There is an urgent need to understand how the clinical sepsis pathway and corresponding clinical laboratory workflow can be better aligned as a single coherent entity. There is also an implicit need to understand how this process should produce actionable information in a timely and orderly manner, and identify residual obselete terminology that has crept into common usage. A widely accepted sepsis epistemology, ontology and heuristic will help us improve our clinical management of sepsis.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Inglis.