Monocyte Distribution Width (MDW) in the General Population of Emergency Department Patients With and Without Bacteremia

BIOMARKERS for Sepsis and Infection should address important clinical aspects such as

1. Rapid diagnosis of invasive infections contributing to organ dysfunction;
2. Provide information regarding antibiotic susceptibility and
3. Distinguish infection mediated organ dysfunction from non-infectious sepsis mimics.

Review of MDW values for ED patients who have positive blood cultures The gold standard for the diagnosis of bloodstream infections is positive blood cultures. Not all patients with sepsis have positive blood cultures, however patients with blood stream infections and end-organ dysfunction are septic and need to be treated with antibiotics. Two definitions of sepsis currently are used.

The sepsis-2 definitions [1,2] are based on a confirmed or suspected infectious source, a systemic response with two or more abnormal systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria such as hyper or hypothermia, tachycardia, tachypnea and leukopenia or leukocytosis or bandemia and signs of at least one new end organ dysfunction. There is a differentiation between different degrees of disease severity between sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock. Each of these degrees of illness severity are associated with different morbidity and mortality.

The sepsis-3 definition [3] state that sepsis is the bodies response to an infectious agent. The response is assessed using a quick SOFA score (qSOFA) assessment based on tachypnea of equal or greater than 22 breath, systolic hypotension of equal or less than 100 mmHg and changes in mentation measured by a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) of less than 15 along with the requirement of a new onset of organ dysfunction as measured by a SOFA score of equal or greater than 2.[4] Sepsis-3 definition distinguish between sepsis and septic shock only. Septic shock is only present if a patient has 2 or more qSOFA criteria, requires the use of a vasoactive agent to maintain a mean arterial blood pressure of 70 mmHg AND if the lactate is greater than 2 mg/dL. Patients which do not have a qSOFA score of greater than 2 or a SOFA score of less than 2 are considered not septic and as having only a local infection.