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The much anticipated new definitions of sepsis and septic shock have been published by the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and Society of Critical Care Medicine Third International Consensus Task Force. A series of three articles describe the creation and validation of these definitions. For more than 2 decades, the cornerstone of sepsis identification included potential infection and presence of two of four systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria. After 2 years of discussion, deliberation, and assessment, this Task Force defined sepsis as “life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection” and septic shock as “a subset of sepsis in which underlying circulatory and cellular/me…