**3. Diagnosis**

Sepsis diagnosis is established on the basis of patient's symptoms and clinical signs combined with radiological examinations and laboratory tests such as the search for biomarkers and identification of the microorganism responsible for the infection. In cases of sepsis, delay in diagnosis and antibiotic therapy affects the mortality of critically ill patients. Establishing diagnosis and therapy is very important but to hinder their definition it is difficult in differentiating sepsis from non-infectious stimuli in SIRS situations, symptoms and clinical signs, radiological and laboratory tests used for the diagnosis of sepsis are those reported in the previously reported tables, used in the definition of sepsis itself. The use of clinical scores, blood cultures and biomarkers for the diagnosis of sepsis will be discussed later.
