2012 Volume 19 Issue 4 Pages 569-577
One of the main goals of recent intensive care medicine is to overcome sepsis; however, no clinical trials about sepsis have proved the effectiveness of treatments. The cause seems to be due to the entry criteria of clinical studies about sepsis. Sepsis is defined as systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) caused by infection, but SIRS criteria is not specific and does not reflect severity and the pathophysiology of patients. Therefore, the PIRO score has been propounded, similar to the TNM classification in oncology. The four components of the PIRO score are predisposition, insult/infection, response, organ dysfunction and each category is scored to stratify the severity of sepsis. Staging contents of each category in the PIRO score have been proposed for severe sepsis, community acquired pneumonia, and nosocomial pneumonia. The PIRO score accurately predicted the prognosis of patients. A clinical study using this PIRO score as a precise characterization tool and staging system of patients is expected.
