SIRS, Sepsis, Septic Shock And

SIRS, Sepsis, Septic Shock and MODS all represent different stages of the same illness, which is a systemic reaction to infection in the body. Sepsis results when an infectious insult triggers a localized inflammatory reaction that then spills over to cause systemic symptoms of fever or hypothermia, tachycardia, tachypnea, and either leukocytosis or leukopenia. These clinical symptoms are called the systemic inflammatory response syndrome. (Jacobi,2002) Sepsis and septic shock are the endpoints of an extremely intricate process that is not precisely understood, but involves a complex and often unbalanced interaction between the body’s inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses to an invading microbe.(Snyder, Kivlhan,Collopy,