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.