t Heinz Red and Gunther Sch ag Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Vienna, Austria The word "sepsis" derives from the Greek meaning decay or rottenness. Tradition- ally this term has been used to describe the process of infection accompanied by the host's systemic inflammatory response. Based on that understanding, previous clin- ical studies have been designed to include only patients with positive blood cultures 1, 2]. However, the frequent occurrence of a septic response without the demon- stration of microorganisms in the circulation has led to a new...