Sepsis
life-threatening response to infection
Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's dysregulated response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs.
This initial stage of sepsis is followed by dysregulation of the immune system. Common signs and symptoms include fever, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, and confusion. There may also be symptoms related to a specific infection, such as a cough with pneumonia, or painful urination with a kidney infection. The very young, old, and people with a weakened immune system may not have any symptoms specific to their infection, and their body temperature may be low or normal instead of constituting a fever. Severe sepsis may cause organ dysfunction and significantly reduced blood flow. The presence of low blood pressure, high blood lactate, or low urine output may suggest poor blood flow. Septic shock is low blood pressure due to sepsis that does not improve after fluid replacement or requires medications to raise the blood pressure.
Sepsis is caused by many organisms, including bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi. Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria are the most common causes of sepsis; when caused by bacteria, it is also referred to as septicaemia.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q183134. The Library of Congress control number is sh85120119. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sepsis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.