Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026

- Purpose and Scope

➡️The purpose of these guidelines is to assist anesthesiologists to enhance the quality of their practice, make choices of care based on evidence to improve patient safety, improve in health indicators such as mortality and incidence and severity of sepsis-related complications, and support improvements in management and overall patient outcomes of sepsis and septic Shock.

Given the high risk of death with septic shock and the more consistent and stronger association of antimicrobial timing and short-term mortality in patients with septic shock, implementation strategies, biomarkers and rapid diagnostic tests for sepsis, identifying the causative organism helping to optimize antimicrobial therapy, timely effective fluid resuscitation and timing of vasopressor initiation among other measures are crucial for proper management strategies.

➡️The intended patient population: the recommendations in the guidelines are intended to be applied pragmatically to adult patients presenting with sepsis and septic shock.

The following guidelines are aimed at providing basic guidelines for management, incorporating principles of recommendations of sepsis and septic shock stabilization and ongoing effort to improve evidence-based care processes, such as timely antibiotic administration, with the aim of improving clinical outcomes. They are intended as a framework for reasonable and acceptable patient care and should be interpreted as such to allow for some degree of flexibility in different circumstances and according to local practice.