SIRS vs. qSOFA Score in the Emergency Department

Clinicians commonly underestimate infection severity in patients with sepsis, resulting in delayed treatment and worsened outcomes. The systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) can be an indicator of infection severity, but is not perfectly sensitive and is highly nonspecific. The quick sequential organ function assessment (qSOFA) score has been proposed as a better initial method to assess infection severity. These authors compared performance of the two scores in 8871 patients admitted from the emergency department with presumed infection.

Generally, SIRS was more sensitive for predicting infection severity, but qSOFA was more specific, with similar overall utility. For predicting organ dysfunction, the area under the receiver operat…