New avenues of sepsis research: obtaining perspective by analyzing and comparing SSCG 2021 and J-SSCG 2020

Recently, revisions of two sepsis guidelines, namely, the Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2020 and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines 2021, were published. Although both guidelines were created in accordance with the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach, the evidence-to-decision tables differed between them. In addition, certain recommendations may differ between these guidelines for similar clinical questions because of differences in the “PICO” criteria. Other differences in recommendations between the two guidelines are due to unclear evidence, and these ambiguities may provide the basis for further sepsis research. We hope that these two guidelines will contribute to the creation of new clinical evidence in addition to supporting treatment of patients with sepsis.