Prehospital antibiotics improved some aspects of sepsis care

SAN ANTONIO – Training EMS personnel in early recognition of sepsis improved some aspects of care within the acute care chain, but did not reduce mortality, according to results of a randomized trial.

Emergency medical service (EMS) personnel were able to recognize sepsis more quickly, obtain blood cultures, and give antibiotics after the training, reported investigator Prabath Nanayakkara, MD, PhD, FRCP, at the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s Critical Care Congress.

Andrew Bowser/Frontline Medical News

However, the hypothesis that this training would lead to increased survival was not met, noted Dr. Nanayakkara, of the acute medicine section of the department of internal medicine at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam.

At 28 days, 120 patients (8%) in the prehospital antibiotics group had died, compared with 93 patients (8%) in the usual care group (relative risk, 0.95; 95% confidence interval, 0.74-1.24), according to the study’s results that were simultaneously published online in Lancet Respiratory Medicine.