Sepsis is a life-threatening organ-dysfunction condition caused by a dysregulated response to an infectious condition that can cause complications in patients with major
trauma.
Burns are one of the most destructive forms of
trauma; despite the improvements in medical care,
infections remain an important cause of
burn injury-related mortality and morbidity, and complicated
sepsis predisposes patients to diverse complications such as organ failure, lengthening of
hospital stays, and increased costs. Accurate diagnosis and early treatment of
sepsis may have a beneficial impact on clinical outcome of
burn-injured patients. In this review, we offer a comprehensive description of the current and traditional markers used as indicative of
sepsis in burned patients. However, although these are markers of the inflammatory post-
burn response, they usually fail to predict
sepsis in severely burned patients due to that they do not reflect the severity of the
infection. Identification and measurement of
biomarkers in early stages of
infection is important in order to provide timely response and effective treatment of burned patients. Therefore, we compiled important experimental evidence, demonstrating novel
biomarkers, including molecular markers such as genomic
DNA variations, alterations of transcriptome profiling (
mRNA,
miRNAs, lncRNAs and
circRNAs), epigenetic markers, and advances in proteomics and metabolomics. Finally, this review summarizes next-generation technologies for the identification of markers for detection of
sepsis after
burn injuries.