Fig. 1

Survival analysis. Survival among 842 children with or without MODS at PICU entry, as defined by Proulx [4] or by Goldstein [5, 6]; no patient was lost or censored. There are four Kaplan–Meier curves: (1) patients without MODS, as diagnosed by the Goldstein diagnostic criteria (upper hatched curve); (2) patients without MODS, as diagnosed using Proulx diagnostic criteria (upper plain curve); (3) patients with MODS, as diagnosed by the Goldstein diagnostic criteria (lower hatched curve); (4) patients with MODS, as diagnosed by the Proulx diagnostic criteria (lower plain curve). There is a statistically significant difference between the two survival curves of patients with MODS according to Proulx and Goldstein definitions (lowest two curves) (p < 0.001). MODS multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, PICU paediatric intensive care unit