ORPHA:90051
Sepsis in premature infants
Publications
201
69.2th percentile
Trials
1
Interventional, condition-specific
Researchers
1,032
Distinct authors in sample
Gene link
—
Readiness
2/6
Stages with a signal
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
A rare systemic condition affecting neonates born at less than 37 weeks gestational age and characterized by life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to an infection, which may have been acquired shortly before or during birth (resulting in early-onset sepsis during the first 72 hours of life), or after birth (leading to late-onset sepsis between 72 hours and three months). Prematurity constitutes one of the primary risk factors for sepsis. The clinical picture may develop gradually with signs and symptoms like irritability, lethargy, or poor feeding, or progress rapidly to respiratory distress, fever, hypothermia, hypotension, shock, and multiple organ failure.
How rare: 1-5 / 10 000 — about one to five people per ten thousand (still uncommon, but less ultra-rare).
Research stages
Trial readiness signals
Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”
2/6 stages with a signal
An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.
- Gene identifiedNot found
No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build
- LiteraturePresent
201 matched papers (118 in last 10 years) Source
- Phenotype characterisedNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO
- Animal modelNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance
- Orphan designationNot checked
FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet
- Interventional trialPresent
1 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov
Biology
Genes and phenotypes
Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.
Do we know what causes it?
Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.
No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.
Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)
Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.
Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)
Not enriched in this build.
Literature
Is anyone studying this?
201
201 papers have ever been published on this condition (under this name). For scale, breast cancer has over 700,000. Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.
201 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).
118 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 69.2th percentile (publications denominator)
Phrase hits: 201 · MeSH hits: 0
Who's working on it?
1,032
Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.
Who's working on it?
People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.
- 01Lake DE7 papers · 2023
Department of Medicine, University of Virginia, Box 800158, Charlottesville, VA, 22901, USA, dlake@virginia.edu.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Moorman JR7 papers · 2023
Department of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. rm3h@virginia.edu
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Sullivan BA7 papers · 2025
Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Fairchild KD6 papers · 2025
Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Benjamin DK Jr5 papers · 2023
Duke Clinical Research Institute Department of Pediatrics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Underwood MA5 papers · 2019
Department of Pediatrics, University of California Davis, Sacramento, California.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Tagiev NA4 papers · 1975Papers in Europe PMC
- 08Zhang X4 papers · 2026
Department of Critical Care Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Berger A3 papers · 2019
Division of Neonatology, Pediatric Intensive Care and Neuropediatrics, Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Vienna, Austria.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Bliss JM3 papers · 2017
Department of Pediatrics, Women & Infants Hospital, Providence, RI, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC
Clinical research
Is a treatment being tested?
1
interventional trials for this specific condition
1 interventional trial matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.
Data as of 27 July 2026
1 interventional trial — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 76.8th percentile).
high confidence · 76.8th percentile (trials denominator)
Recruiting interventional trials
From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set
1 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.
No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.
Where to find support
We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:
India — NPRD
Last verified 2026-07-26This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.
Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.
How we counted this
Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.
"Sepsis in premature infants"
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Sepsis in premature infants"
Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).
Study-type breakdown: 1 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.
Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase
Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov
Confidence reasoning
- Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
- No synonyms dropped by stoplist
- No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
Ingested 2026-07-27T03:32:14.403Z