Sick or Not Sick? Evolving Biomarkers for Severe Bacterial Infection

Sick or Not Sick?  Evolving Biomarkers for Severe Bacterial Infection

In the United States, sepsis accounts for over 751,000 cases, 215,000 deaths, and 16.7 billion dollars in health care costs annually. Severe sepsis kills more individuals than breast, colon, rectal, pancreatic, and prostate cancer combined. With the difficulties associated with access to primary care and more aggressive emphasis on rapid hospital discharge and outpatient surgeries, sepsis ranks as one of the highest prevalence, highest mortality, and most expensive conditions that an emergency physician will encounter.

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Lactate – A Marker for Sepsis and Trauma

Lactate – A Marker for Sepsis and Trauma

While lactate testing has been in medical arena for over a century, its utility in the emergency department for the evaluation of these potentially critically ill patients is only now being recognized. In this newsletter Andra L. Blomkalns, MD aims to review the present literature on lactate testing in the clinical environment as it pertains to its use for emergency department patients.

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