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Objective: Patients with suspected infections account for 15% to 35% of hospital emergency department (ED) caseloads in Spain and Latin America. The main objective of this systematic review was to compare evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of early (3 hours after triage) vs deferred ($ 3-6 hours) antibiotic therapy prescribed in EDs for adults with serious infections or sepsis. Efficacy and improved clinical course were defined by reduced progression to septic shock and short- and long-term mortality., Methods: The review was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA). PubMed, the Web of Sciencie, EMBASE, Lilacs, Cochrane, Epistemonikos, Tripdatabase, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for the period from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2023. No language restrictions were set. We used the following Medical English Subject Headings and strings: "Antibiotic OR Antibiotic Treatment OR Antibiotic Therapy OR Early Antibiotic Treatment OR Early Antibiotic Therapy," "Infection OR Bacterial Infection OR Sepsis," "Emergencies OR Emergency OR Emergency Department," "Timing," "Early," and "Adults." Observational cohort studies were included. To evaluate quality of research design and risk of bias, we applied the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Case-control studies, narrative reviews and other types of articles were excluded. We completed a narrative review of the findings and did not undertake meta-analysis. The review was registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42024520687)., Results: The search yielded 1528 articles, of which 7 met the criteria for inclusion and analysis. The 7 studies comprised data for 118349 patients, 74141 of whom (62.6%) received early antibiotic treatment. Three studies were classified as high quality, 3 moderate, and 1 low. The 3 high-quality studies provided information on 2 aspects: 1) hospital and short-term mortality and 2) long-term mortality. One high-quality study showed a tendency for hospital and 30-day mortality to increase when antibiotics were administered more than 6 hours after triage vs within 1 hour of triage (hazard ratio, 2.25; 95% CI, 0.91-5.59; P = .08). Another reported an adjusted odds ratio of 1.09 (95% CI, 1.05-1.13; P = .024) for hospital mortality associated with each hour of therapeutic delay after triage. The third study reported that each additional hour of delay after triage was associated with a 10% increase (95% CI, 5%-14%; P .001) in the probability of 360-day mortality. Finally, the single low-quality study reported that each hour of delay in treatment was associated with an odds ratio of 1.08 (95% CI, 1.02-1.04; P .001) for increased risk of septic shock., Conclusions: Early initiation of antibiotic therapy, preferably within 3 hours of triage, can be recommended in cases of serious infection (sepsis or serious sepsis that do not meet the criteria for septic shock). In fact, based on a tendency for higher short- and long-term mortality associated with delay and a higher probability of developing septic shock with each hour of delay, therapy should start as soon as possible if infection is confirmed or suspected in the absence of an alternative diagnosis.

Objective: To analyze the diagnostic accuracy of the new MeMed® test to predict bacterial infection in adult patients seen in emergency departments (ED) with clinical suspicion of infection, as well as to compare its performance with other commonly used biomarkers (protein C reactive-PCR-, procalcitonin -PCT-)., Methods: A prospective, observational and analytical study was carried out on adult patients who were treated in an ED with the clinical diagnosis of an infectious process. Follow-up was carried out for 30 days. The diagnosis of bacterial infection (BI) was considered as the dependent variable. The predictive ability was analyzed with the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (COR) and the values of sensitivity (Se), specificity (Es), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the PCR, PCT, leukocyte count and the LIAISON® MeMed® test., Results: The study included 258 patients, 54 (15.6%) of whom died within 30 days of visiting the ED. The mean age was 68.28 (SD 19.53) years, 57.4% (148) were men. At 30 days, the group with the IB diagnosis had 137 patients, the viral infection group 68 cases and 17 in the indeterminate group. The AUC-COR achieved by MeMed® in the group that analyzes all patients was 0.920 (95% CI: 0.877-0.962) and the PCT was 0.811 (95% CI: 0.754-0.867). With a cut-off point (PC) > 65 points of the MeMed® test, achieves a Se: 79.2% and Es: 91.2% and with PC > 90 points a Se: 57% and Es: 95.9%. Applying the Youden index, the PC > 50 points achieves Se:84.1% and Es:88.2%., Conclusions: In adult patients treated with clinical suspicion of infection in the ED, the LIAISON MeMed® test has a great ability to diagnose its bacterial origin and achieves better performance than PCT, PCR and leukocyte count., (©The Author 2024. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Objective: To analyse a new risk score to predict bacteremia (MPB-INFURG-SEMES) in the patients with solid tumor attender for infection in the emergency departments (ED)., Methods: Prospective, multicenter observational cohort study of blood cultures (BC) obtained from adult patients with solid neoplasia treated in 63 EDs for infection from November 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. The predictive ability of the model was analyzed with the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). The prognostic performance for true bacteremia was calculated with the chosen cut-off for getting the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value., Results: A total of 857 blood samples wered cultured. True cases of bacteremia were confirmed in 196 (22.9%). The remaining 661 cultures (77.1%) wered negative. And, 42 (4.9%) were judged to be contaminated. The model's area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.923 (95% CI,0.896-0.950). The prognostic performance with a model's cut-off value of ≥ 5 points achieved 95.74% (95% CI, 94,92-96.56) sensitivity, 76.06% (95% CI, 75.24-76.88) specificity, 53.42%(95% CI, 52.60-54.24) positive predictive value and 98.48% (95% CI, 97.66- 99.30) negative predictive value., Conclusions: The MPB-INFURG-SEMES score is useful for predicting bacteremia in the adults patients with solid tumor seen in the ED., (©The Author 2024. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Objective: To evaluate lactate and the Quick Sepsis-Related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) and compare their ability to predict 30-day mortality in patients treated for infection in emergency departments (ED)., Methods: Prospective multicenter observational cohort study. We enrolled a convenience sample of patients aged 18 years or older attended in 71 Spanish ED from October 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. Each model's predictive power was analyzed with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and its values of sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative (NPV)., Results: A total of 4439 patients with a mean (SD) age of 18 years were studied; 2648 (59.7%) were men and 459 (10.3%) died within 30 days. For 30-day mortality, the AUC-COR obtained with the qSOFA = 1 model plus 2 mmol/l lactate was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.63-0.69) with Se: 68%, Es: 70% and NPV:92%, while qSOFA = 1 obtained AUC-COR of 0.52 (95% CI, 0.49-0.55) with a Se:42%, Es:64% and NPV:90%., Conclusions: To predict 30-day mortality in patients presenting to the ED due to an episode of infection, the qSOFA =1 + lactate≥2 mmol/L model significantly improves the predictive power achieved individually by qSOFA1 and becomes very similar to qSOFA≥2., (©The Author 2023. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Text: The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) published a 2021 update of its 2016 recommendations. The update was awaited with great anticipation the world over, especially by emergency physicians. Under the framework of the CIMU 2022 (33rd World Emergency Medicine Conference) in Guadalajara, Mexico in March, emergency physiciansreviewed and analyzed the 2021 SSC guidelines from our specialty's point of view. In this article, the expert reviewers present their consensus on certain key points of most interest in emergency settings at this time. The main aims of the review are to present constructive comments on 10 key points and/or recommendations in the SSC 2021 update and to offer emergency physicians' experience- and evidence-based proposals. Secondarily, the review's recommendations are a starting point for guidelines to detect severe sepsis in emergency department patients and prevent progression, which is ultimate goal of what has become known as the Guadalajara Declaration on sepsis.

The care of patients with a suspected infectious process in hospital emergency department (ED) has increased in the last decade to account for around 15-20% of all daily care. In the initial evaluation of these patients, samples are taken for the different microbiological studies in 45% of the cases, where obtaining blood cultures (BC) predominates, in 14.6% of all of them. The diagnostic yield of these BC is highly variable (2-20%). The most frequent suspected or confirmed foci or infectious processes of true bacteremia (TB) in the ED are urinary tract infection (45%) and respiratory infection (25%). For all these reasons, the suspicion and confirmation of TB has a relevant diagnostic and prognostic significance and requires changing some of the most important decisions to be made in the ED. Among others, indicate discharge or admission, extract BC and administer the appropriate and early antimicrobial. The intention of this review is to highlight the scientific evidence published in the last five years, clarify the current controversies and compare the ability to predict bacteremia of the latest predictive models published since 2017 with those already existing on that date, year in which a review was published that left open the proposal to continue searching for a model with adequate performance for ED. And so, based on it, generate different recommendations that help define the role that these models or scales can have in improving the indication for obtaining BC, as well as in the immediate making of other diagnostic-therapeutic decisions (administration early and appropriate antibiotic treatment, request for complementary tudies and other microbiological samples, intensity of hemodynamic support, need for admission, etc.)., (©The Author 2022. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Objectives: To evaluate lactate, procalcitonin, criteria defining systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and the Quick Sepsis-Related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) and compare their ability to predict 30-day mortality, infection with microbiologic confirmation, and true bacteremia in patients treated for infection in hospital emergency departments., Material and Methods: Prospective multicenter observational cohort study. We enrolled a convenience sample of patients aged 18 years or older attended in 71 Spanish emergency departments from October 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. Each model's predictive power was analyzed with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and predetermined decision points were assessed., Results: A total of 4439 patients with a mean (SD) age of 18 years were studied; 2648 (59.7%) were men and 459 (10.3%) died within 30 days. True bacteremia was detected in 899 (20.25%), and microbiologic confirmation was on record for 2057 (46.3%). The model that included the qSOFA score (2) and lactate concentration (0.738 mmol/L; 95% CI, 0.711-0.765 mmol/L) proved to be the best predictor of 30-day mortality, with an AUC of 0.890 (95% CI, 0.880-0.901). The model that included the SIRS score (2) and procalcitonin concentration (0.51 ng/mL) proved to be the best predictor of true bacteremia and microbiologic confirmation, with an AUC of 0.713 (95% CI, 0.698-0.728)., Conclusion: A qSOFA score of 2 or more plus lactate concentration (0.738 mmol/L) predict 30-day mortality better than the combination of a SIRS score of 2 or more and procalcitonin concentration. A SIRS score of 2 or more plus procalcitonin concentration (0.51 ng/mL) predict true bacteremia and microbiologic confirmation.

Objective: To analyse and compare 30-day mortality prognostic power of several biomarkers (C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, lactate and suPAR) in patients seen in emergency departments (ED) due to infections. Secondly, if these could improve the accuracy of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and quick Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA)., Methods: A prospective, observational and analytical study was carried out on patients who were treated in an ED of one of the eight participating hospitals. An assessment was made of 32 independent variables that could influence mortality at 30 days. They covered epidemiological, comorbidity, functional, clinical and analytical factors., Results: The study included 347 consecutive patients, 54 (15.6%) of whom died within 30 days of visiting the ED. SUPAR has got the best biomarker area under the curve (AUC)-ROC to predict mortality at 30 days of 0.836 (95% CI: 0.765-0.907; P <.001) with a cut-off > 10 ng/mL who had a sensitivity of 70% and a specificity of 86%. The score qSOFA ≥ 2 had AUC-ROC of 0.707 (95% CI: 0.621-0.793; P < .001) with sensitivity of 53% and a specificity of 89%. The mixed model (suPAR > 10 ng/mL plus qSOFA ≥ 2) has improved the AUC-ROC to 0.853 [95% CI: 0.790-0.916; P < .001] with the best prognostic performance: sensitivity of 39% and a specificity of 97% with a negative predictive value of 90%., Conclusions: suPAR showed better performance for 30-day mortality prognostic power from several biomarkers in the patients seen in ED due to infections. Score qSOFA has better performance that SRIS and the mixed model (qSOFA ≥ 2 plus suPAR > 10 ng/mL) increased the ability of qSOFA., (©The Author 2021. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Objective: Design a risk model to predict bacteraemia in patients attended in emergency departments (ED) for an episode of infection., Methods: This was a national, prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study of blood cultures (BC) collected from adult patients (≥ 18 years) attended in 71 Spanish EDs from October 1 2019 to March 31, 2020. Variables with a p value < 0.05 were introduced in the univariate analysis together with those of clinical significance. The final selection of variables for the scoring scale was made by logistic regression with selection by introduction. The results obtained were internally validated by dividing the sample in a derivation and a validation cohort., Results: A total of 4,439 infectious episodes were included. Of these, 899 (20.25%) were considered as true bacteraemia. A predictive model for bacteraemia was defined with seven variables according to the Bacteraemia Prediction Model of the INFURG-SEMES group (MPB-INFURG-SEMES). The model achieved an area under the curve-receiver operating curve of 0.924 (CI 95%:0.914-0.934) in the derivation cohort, and 0.926 (CI 95%: 0.910-0.942) in the validation cohort. Patients were then split into ten risk categories, and had the following rates of risk: 0.2%(0 points), 0.4%(1 point), 0.9%(2 points), 1.8%(3 points), 4.7%(4 points), 19.1% (5 points), 39.1% (6 points), 56.8% (7 points), 71.1% (8 points), 82.7% (9 points) and 90.1% (10 points). Findings were similar in the validation cohort. The cut-off point of five points provided the best precision with a sensitivity of 95.94%, specificity of 76.28%, positive predictive value of 53.63% and negative predictive value of 98.50%., Conclusion: The MPB-INFURG-SEMES model may be useful for the stratification of risk of bacteraemia in adult patients with infection in EDs, together with clinical judgement and other variables independent of the process and the patient., (© 2021. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: Social vulnerability is a known determinant of health in respiratory diseases. Our aim was to identify whether there are socio-demographic factors among COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Spain and their potential impact on health outcomes during the hospitalization., Methods: A multicentric retrospective case series study based on administrative databases that included all COVID-19 cases admitted in 19 Spanish hospitals from 1 March to 15 April 2020. Socio-demographic data were collected. Outcomes were critical care admission and in-hospital mortality., Results: We included 10,110 COVID-19 patients admitted to 18 Spanish hospitals (median age 68 (IQR 54-80) years old; 44.5% female; 14.8% were not born in Spain). Among these, 779 (7.7%) cases were admitted to critical care units and 1678 (16.6%) patients died during the hospitalization. Age, male gender, being immigrant, and low hospital saturation were independently associated with being admitted to an intensive care unit. Age, male gender, being immigrant, percentile of average per capita income, and hospital experience were independently associated with in-hospital mortality., Conclusions: Social determinants such as residence in low-income areas and being born in Latin American countries were associated with increased odds of being admitted to an intensive care unit and of in-hospital mortality. There was considerable variation in outcomes between different Spanish centers., (© 2021. Society of General Internal Medicine.)

Objective: To analyse a new risk score to predict bacteremia in the patients with Community-acquired Pneumonia (CAP) in the emergency departments., Methods: Prospective and multicenter observational cohort study of the blood cultures ordered in 74 Spanish emergency departments for patients with CAP seen from November 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. The predictive ability of the model was analyzed with the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). The prognostic performance for true bacteremia was calculated with the chosen cut-off for getting the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value., Results: A total of 1,020 blood samples wered cultured. True cases of bacteremia were confirmed in 162 (15.9%). The remaining 858 cultures (84.1%) wered negative. And, 59 (5.8%) were judged to be contaminated. The model´s area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.915 (95% CI, 0.898-0.933). The prognostic performance with a model´s cut-off value of ≥ 5 points achieved 97.5% (95% CI, 95.1-99.9) sensitivity, 73.2% (95% CI, 70.2-76.2) specificity, 40.9% (95% CI, 36.4-45.1) positive predictive value and 99.4% (95% CI, 99.1-99.8) negative predictive value., Conclusions: The 5MPB-Toledo score is useful for predicting bacteremia in the patients with CAP seen in the emergency departments., (©The Author 2021. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).)

Objective: To validate a simple risk score to predict bacteremia (MPB5-Toledo) in patients seen in the emergency departments (ED) due to infections., Methods: Prospective and multicenter observational cohort study of the blood cultures (BC) ordered in 74 Spanish ED for adults (aged 18 or older) seen from from October 1, 2019, to February 29, 2020. The predictive ability of the model was analyzed with the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). The prognostic performance for true bacteremia was calculated with the cut-off values chosen for getting the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value., Results: A total of 3.843 blood samples wered cultured. True cases of bacteremia were confirmed in 839 (21.83%). The remaining 3.004 cultures (78.17%) were negative. Among the negative, 172 (4.47%) were judged to be contaminated. Low risk for bacteremia was indicated by a score of 0 to 2 points, intermediate risk by 3 to 5 points, and high risk by 6 to 8 points. Bacteremia in these 3 risk groups was predicted for 1.5%, 16.8%, and 81.6%, respectively. The model's area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.930 (95% CI, 0.916-0.948). The prognostic performance with a model's cut-off value of ≥ 5 points achieved 94.76% (95% CI: 92.97-96.12) sensitivity, 81.56% (95% CI: 80.11-82.92) specificity, and negative predictive value of 98.24% (95% CI: 97.62-98.70)., Conclusion: The 5MPB-Toledo score is useful for predicting bacteremia in patients attended in hospital emergency departments for infection., (Copyright © 2021 Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To develop a simple risk score to predict bacteremia in patients in our hospital emergency department for infection., Material and Methods: Retrospective observational cohort study of all blood cultures ordered in the emergency department for adults (aged 18 or older) from July 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019. We gathered data on 38 independent variables (demographic, comorbidity, functional status, and laboratory findings) that might predict bacteremia. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were applied to the data and a risk scale was developed., Results: A total of 2181 blood samples were cultured. True cases of bacteremia were confirmed in 262 (12%). The remaining 1919 cultures (88%) were negative. No growth was observed in 1755 (80.5%) of the negative cultures, and 164 (7.5%) were judged to be contaminated. The 5MPB-Toledo model identified 5 predictors of bacteremia: temperature higher than 38.3°C (1 point), a Charlson comorbidity index of 3 or more (1 point), respiratory frequency of at least 22 breaths/min (1 point), leukocyte count greater than 12 000/mm3 (1 point), and procalcitonin concentration of 0.51 ng/mL or higher (4 points). Low risk for bacteremia was indicated by a score of 0 to 2 points, intermediate risk by 3 to 5 points, and high risk by 6 to 8 points. Bacteremia in these 3 risk groups was predicted for 1.1%, 10.5%, and 77%, respectively. The model's area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.946 (95% CI, 0.922-0.969)., Conclusion: The 5MPB-Toledo score could be useful for predicting bacteremia in patients attended in hospital emergency departments for infection.

The incidence of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) ranges from 2-15 cases / 1,000 inhabitants / year, being higher in those older than 65 years and in patients with high co-morbidity. Around 75% of all CAP diagnosed are treated in the Emergency Department (ED). The CAP represents the main cause for sepsis and septic shock in ED, and the most frequent cause of death and admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) due to infectious disease. Overall mortality is 10-14% according to age and associated risk factors. Forty to 60% of CAP will require hospital admission, including observation units (with very variable ranges from 22-65% according to centers, seasonal of the year and patients´ characteristics). Between the admissions, 2-10% will be in the ICU. All of previously mentioned reflects the importance of the CAP in the ED, as well as the "impact of the emergency care on the patient with CAP", as it is the establishment where the initial, but key decisions, are made and could condition the outcome of the illness. It is known the great variability among physicians in the diagnostic and therapeutic management of CAP, which is one of the reasons that explains the great differences in the admission rates, achievement of the microbiological diagnosis, request for complementary studies, the choice of antimicrobial treatment, or the diversity of applied care. In this sense, the implementation of clinical practice guidelines with the use of the severity scores and the new tools available, such as biomarkers, can improve patient care with CAP in ED. Therefore, a multidisciplinary group of emergency professionals and specialists involved in the care process of CAP has designed a guideline with several recommendations for decisions-making during the key moments in patients with CAP attended in the ED., (© The Author 2018. Published by Sociedad Española de Quimioterapia.)