Xie J, Wang H, Kang Y, et al. - By conducting a national cross-sectional survey, researchers analyzed the epidemiologic features of patients encountering sepsis in ICU in China. Participants were all septic patients who received a diagnosis as per sepsis-1 criteria and were admitted to participating ICUs in 44 hospitals. There were 2,322 patients with sepsis, with 786 having hospital-acquired sepsis. Experts found that among patients admitted to ICUs in mainland China, a fifth got affected by sepsis, with a 90-day mortality rate of 35.5%. Factors that displayed a link with 90-day mortality were: older age, low body weight, higher Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score, the number of systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria, comorbid with heart failure, hematologic cancer, immunosuppression, a higher level of lactate, infection site (pneumonia and bloodstream). Overall, a huge burden of sepsis was noted, and high mortality related to sepsis calls for a focus on sepsis as a quality improvement target in China.