MIMIC-Sepsis: A Curated Benchmark for Modeling and Learning from Sepsis Trajectories in the ICU

Abstract--Sepsis is a leading cause of mortality in intensive care units (ICUs), yet existing research often relies on outdated datasets, non-reproducible preprocessing pipelines, and limited coverage of clinical interventions. We introduce MIMIC-Sepsis, a curated cohort and benchmark framework derived from the MIMIC-IV database, designed to support reproducible modeling of sepsis trajectories. Our cohort includes 35,239 ICU patients with time-aligned clinical variables and standardized treatment data, including vasopressors, fluids, mechanical ventilation and antibiotics. We describe a transparent preprocess-ing pipeline--based on Sepsis-3 criteria, structured imputation strategies, and treatment inclusion--and release it alongside benchmark tasks focused on early mortality prediction, length-of-stay estimation, and shock onset classification. Empirical results demonstrate that incorporating treatment variables substantially improves model performance, particularly for Transformer-based architectures. MIMIC-Sepsis serves as a robust platform for evaluating predictive and sequential models in critical care research. Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's extreme response to an infection that can lead to organ failure and even death.