Clinical Approach to Sepsis and Its Mimics in Critical Care

INTRODUCTION Sepsis refers to bacteremia or fungemia with hypotension and organ dysfunction. The main clinical problemwith the “septic” patient is to determinewhether the patient is septic or has a disorder noninfectious mimic of sepsis by hemodynamic or laboratory parameters. In the intensive care setting, it is of critical importance to differentiate between sepsis and its mimics (1-6).