Background: Sepsis is a leading cause of mortality both locally and worldwide. Despite this, early diagnosis of sepsis remains challenging, with a significant number not fulfilling SIRS (Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) criteria. In 2016, the Sepsis-3 guidelines modified its definition to include the qSOFA (Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment) score in an attempt to include a significant number of SIRS-negative septic patients.

Methods: To compare the two, 295 adult patients in the emergency room with suspected infection were included in the study and simultaneously determined their qSOFA score and SIRS criteria. Three infection specialists adjudicated the presence of sepsis, and outcomes within the first 48 hours were acquired. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values for qSOFA and SIRS were computed using constructed confusion matrices, and overall predictive accuracy was measured by the Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) curve.

Results: Of the 295 patients included in the study, 95 (32.2%) were deemed sepsis positive via adjudication. The qSOFA score was a specific (95.5%) but a poorly sensitive (46.3%) test compared to the SIRS criteria (sensitivity 73.7% and specificity 60%). Both qSOFA and the SIRS criteria significantly correlated with sepsis positivity, but the qSOFA score had superior overall predictive accuracy at 70.9% compared to the SIRS criteria. The adjudicators had moderate strength in agreement (Fleiss' kappa = 0.39) and a percentage agreement of 60%.

Conclusion: We concluded that the qSOFA score was a more accurate predictor of sepsis and a reliable pre-dictor of in-hospital mortality, but should not be used as a sepsis screening tool due to the low sensitivity. We recommend that the SIRS criteria be maintained as a screening tool and to use the qSOFA score concurrently for time management.

Key Words: Sepsis, qSOFA, SIRS

Sepsis ; Prospective Studies ; Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Background: and Purpose Recent studies suggested an increased incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We evaluated the volume of CVT hospitalization and in-hospital mortality during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding year. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 171 stroke centers from 49 countries. We recorded COVID-19 admission volumes, CVT hospitalization, and CVT in-hospital mortality from January 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021. CVT diagnoses were identified by International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) codes or stroke databases. We additionally sought to compare the same metrics in the first 5 months of 2021 compared to the corresponding months in 2019 and 2020 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04934020). Results: There were 2,313 CVT admissions across the 1-year pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic year (2020); no differences in CVT volume or CVT mortality were observed. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT volumes compared to 2019 (27.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 24.2 to 32.0; P<0.0001) and 2020 (41.4%; 95% CI, 37.0 to 46.0; P<0.0001). A COVID-19 diagnosis was present in 7.6% (132/1,738) of CVT hospitalizations. CVT was present in 0.04% (103/292,080) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. During the first pandemic year, CVT mortality was higher in patients who were COVID positive compared to COVID negative patients (8/53 [15.0%] vs. 41/910 [4.5%], P=0.004). There was an increase in CVT mortality during the first 5 months of pandemic years 2020 and 2021 compared to the first 5 months of the pre-pandemic year 2019 (2019 vs. 2020: 2.26% vs. 4.74%, P=0.05; 2019 vs. 2021: 2.26% vs. 4.99%, P=0.03). In the first 5 months of 2021, there were 26 cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), resulting in six deaths. Conclusions During the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic, CVT hospitalization volume and CVT in-hospital mortality did not change compared to the prior year. COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with higher CVT in-hospital mortality. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT hospitalization volume and increase in CVT-related mortality, partially attributable to VITT.