[Sepsis management -- antibiotic therapy].

Sepsis is one of the most frequent infectious problems at Intensive Care Units, and sepsis is associated with significant mortality. The latter could not be markedly reduced in the last years, despite a number of advances in the field of volume substitution, catecholamines, and endocrinologic therapy. The reason might be that important steps towards overcoming of sepsis are the surgical resection of infectious foci and an adequate antibiotic treatment. A critical role plays the growing resistance of pathogens against the common antibiotics. Since no major progress in the development of new antibiotics can be expected for the next years, sepsis treatment must be focused on prevention of infection, and on an optimised application of current antibiotic substances. The key factors are a broad and high dose initial treatment, a de-escalation strategy according to the clinical course, and -with exceptions- a limitation of treatment to 7 to 10 days. Rotation of antibiotics should be performed, if problems with resistances exist or no specialist for infectious diseases is available on the Intensive Care Unit.