[Sepsis-3 : What has been confirmed in therapy?]

Hugo Schottmüller realized already over 100 years ago that sepsis is a syndrome that occurs as a consequence of an infection defined by a systemic overreaction to a periodic invasion of bacilli. Consistent with this old concept, the term "systemic inflammatory response syndrome" (SIRS) was coined about 25 years ago and has been regularly used ever since. In 2016, a sepsis task force was formed to re-evaluate the current definition on a scientific basis. The task force suggested a third definition (sepsis-3) of the disease that now focuses both on the pathological host response and on organ dysfunction as obligatory key features to diagnose sepsis. In this review article, the definition is explained in detail and we summarize the novel international sepsis guideline from 2017 with personal commentaries.