EMCrit
PulmCrit - October 1, 2016 - By Josh Farkas

Summary
- Churpek et al. 2016 is the first study to attempt validation of qSOFA.
- qSOFA and SIRS have similar overall performance in predicting the combined outcome of death or ICU transfer. qSOFA has a higher specificity, but this comes as a tradeoff for lower sensitivity.
- qSOFA is <40% sensitive for detecting a patient who will die or need ICU transfer in 12 hours.
- qSOFA is consistently out-performed by the NEWS score, a more sophisticated bedside risk-stratification tool (figure below).
- This study doesn’t support the Sepsis-3 definition. Further evidence is needed before considering the widespread adoption of qSOFA and Sepsis-3. The British approach using the NEWS score appears superior."