Population Characteristics
In order to describe whether SNP in the lncRNA TDRG1 rs8506 was associated with susceptibility to sepsis in a southern Chinese child population, we carried out a case–control study with a cohort of 474 Chinese patients with sepsis and 678 healthy controls. The general and clinical characteristics of the study population were summarized in Table 1. On average, the patients were 24 months old (range: 1–180; standard deviation, SD: ±35) and the healthy controls were 26 months old (range: 1–168; SD: ±31). Of the 474 patients, 63% were male individuals and 37% were female; while 59% of the healthy controls were male and 41% were female. No statistically significant differences were found between cases and control groups with respect to age (P = 0.272) and gender (P = 0.111). During the observation period, 61.2% of the patients were in severe sepsis and 17.9% were in septic shock. Considering the prognosis of the patients, the patient group was subdivided into survivors (394; 83.1%) and non-survivors (80;16.9%). Moreover, 58.2% of all the enrolled patients developed 1-2 organs with dysfunction; 3 or more organs with dysfunction occurred in about 20% of all the patients.