Study population
The study included 474 patients with sepsis, who were randomly selected from January 2016 to December 2018 in our hospital. The diagnostic criterial for sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock were based on the Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines for Management of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock[28]. The 678 subjects in the control group were recruited from our hospital according to the age and gender of the patients in an approximate 1:1 ratio. The characteristics of all subjects in the present study were shown in Table 1. This study had received the ethics approval of the Institutional Review Board of Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center (2015042202). Written informed consent was obtained from each participant guardian.