Challenges in assessing the burden of sepsis and understanding the inequalities of sepsis outcomes between National Health Systems: secular trends in sepsis and infection incidence and mortality in Germany.

Sepsis and infection remain significant causes of hospital admission and death in Germany. Sepsis-related mortality is higher and has declined to a lesser degree than in other high-income countries. Although infection rates steadily increased, the observed annual increase of sepsis cases seems to result, to a considerable degree, from improved coding of sepsis.