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Last updated by Dr Colin Tidy, MRCGPLast updated 22 Apr 2024

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Medical Professionals

Professional Reference articles are designed for health professionals to use. They are written by UK doctors and based on research evidence, UK and European Guidelines. You may find one of our health articles more useful.

Sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection.1

Septic shock is associated with particularly profound circulatory, cellular and metabolic abnormalities, with a greater risk of mortality than with sepsis alone.

  • Sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection.

  • Septic shock describes circulatory, cellular, and metabolic abnormalities which are associated with a greater risk of mortality than sepsis alone.

Patients with septic shock can be clinically identified by a vasopressor requirement to maintain a mean arterial pressure of 65 mm Hg or greater and serum lactate level greater than 2 mmol/L in the absence of hypovolaemia. This combination is associated with hospital mortality rates greater than 40%.

Further reading and references

  1. Seymour CW, Liu VX, Iwashyna TJ, et al; Assessment of Clinical Criteria for Sepsis: For the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3). JAMA. 2016 Feb 23;315(8):762-74. doi: 10.1001/jama.2016.0288.

Article history

The information on this page is written and peer reviewed by qualified clinicians.

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