Scoring of surgical sepsis in head and neck surgery

ABSTRACT

Sepsis in surgery is a scourge that a surgeon simply must avoid. However despite his utmost effort, sometimes one is confronted with a situation of infection following surgery which may mar his entire endeavour. Just like pain, infection is an abstract clinical entity; the difference being that while pain is a subjective phenomenon, infection is an objective state. In order to aptly describe the clinical status of sepsis, and to be able to compare or reproduce one's findings in ideal situation in different patients, an index for sepsis is needed. Such a unit of measurement is called 'scoring' Such vague terms as mild moderate or severe should be discarded. Several forms of 'scoring in sepsis' have been in vague in different centers of the world. They are reviewed in this article, and a modification of 'Elabute and Stoner's system of scoring, applied in our department is presented