Sepsis in Critically Ill Children in Bolivia: Multicenter Retrospective Evaluation of the Phoenix Criteria for Sepsis in a 2023 Cohort

In this 2023, retrospective cohort of PICU patients with sepsis in Bolivia, we have found that the majority met the 2024 Phoenix sepsis criteria, but less than two-thirds met the SIRS-based criteria for diagnosis. However, the respiratory score in the Phoenix criteria overestimated the severity of respiratory dysfunction in more than half of the cohort, likely because the score does not take account of the Andean adaptation to high altitude, with higher oxygen carrying capacity.