This article systematically reviews research on the costs of sepsis and, as a secondary aim, evaluates the quality of economic evaluations reported in peer-reviewed journals.

We systematically searched the MEDLINE, National Health Service (Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Economic Evaluation and Health Technology Assessment), Cost-effectiveness Analysis Registry and Web of Knowledge databases for studies published between January 2005 and June 2015. We selected original articles that provided cost and cost-effectiveness analyses, defined sepsis and described their cost calculation method. Only studies that considered index admissions and re-admissions in the first 30 days were published in peer-reviewed journals and used standard treatments were considered. All costs were adjusted to 2014 US dollars. Medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) for various costs of sepsis were calculated. The quality of economic studies was assessed using the Drummond 10-item checklist.

Overall, 37 studies met our eligibility criteria. The median of the mean hospital-wide cost of sepsis per patient was $32,421 (IQR $20,745–$40,835), and the median of the mean ICU cost of sepsis per patient was $27,461 (IQR $16,007–$31,251). Overall, the quality of economic studies was low.

Estimates of the hospital-related costs of sepsis varied considerably across the included studies depending on the method used for cost calculation, the type of sepsis and the population that was examined. A standard model for conducting cost improve the quality of studies on the costs of sepsis.