Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026

Sepsis, life-threatening acute organ dysfunction due to infection, is a global health priority. Beyond being acutely deadly, sepsis contributes to new and worsened physical, cognitive, and mental health problems in many survivors. Early identification and treatment are critical to improving outcomes.

The Egyptian Guideline was made in accordance with “The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC): The international guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026” [1] which were fully funded by Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM), with methodological support from the Guidelines in Intensive Care Medicine, Development, and Evaluation group. These Guidelines are intended to support clinicians caring for adult patients with sepsis and septic shock.

The guidelines define sepsis as life-threatening acute organ dysfunction due to infection, and septic shock as a subset of patients with circulatory dysfunction that confers a higher risk of mortality, consistent with the third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3) [2]. Because the diagnosis of sepsis may be uncertain in clinical practice, they developed standardized language for definite, probable, possible, and unlikely sepsis, which are used throughout the guidelines (Table 1).

In clinical practice, diagnosis of sepsis and septic shock should be based on holistic clinical assessment, which may vary across settings depending on local resources such as laboratory testing availability. The recommendations in the guidelines are intended to be applied pragmatically to patients diagnosed with sepsis and septic shock according to local practice, with recognition that successful implementation requires coordinated approaches that align sepsis protocols with stewardship objectives at the institutional level.