When it comes to under-the-radar killers, sepsis is at or near the top of the list. It can begin quietly, often looking like the flu, pneumonia, or a urinary tract infection. And then it escalates, quickly erupting into widespread infection and inflammation that can cause organ failure and death if not treated fast enough.
Sepsis accounts for one-third to one-half of all deaths that occur in US hospitals, or between 225,000 and 350,000 deaths a year. That puts it right behind heart disease and cancer as a leading cause of death among Americans. Yet sepsis barely gets mentioned in the press and hasn’t attracted a fraction of the research interest as heart disease and cancer. New research published Monday in JAMA is a welcome addition.
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