A New Approach to Ventilator-associated Pneumonia Based on the PIRO System

Several new scoring systems have been developed over recent years to assess the degree of organ failure (e.g., Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation [APACHE] II, APACHE III, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment [SOFA], Simplified Acute Physiology Score [SAPS] II, and Multiple Organ Dysfunction Score [MODS]). Most of these were models generated based on the concepts of sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock. In 2001, an International Sepsis Definition Conference updated these terms in order to facilitate standardized enrolment into clinical trials, but due to their simplicity and easy use physicians rapidly adopted them for daily clinical practice [1].