Duration of antibiotic treatment in surgical infections of the abdomen. At what point is infection cured but inflammation persists?

Abstract

While infection is a consequence of invasion of microorganisms, sepsis is a phenomenon of the host. Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), "severe sepsis", and "septic shock" may occur without infection, or persist, and lead to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) after infection has been eradicated with antibiotics and surgery. The mechanisms responsible for these phenomena are increasingly being elucidated, but we cannot yet define when infective sepsis merges into non-infective sepsis. What do we know is they are just as lethal as each other.