Summary

Untreated septic shock is usually fatal within 24 to 36 hours. Clinical trials with anti-inflammatory agents in patients with sepsis are based on the assumption that the pathogenesis of sepsis is primarily driven by excessive proinflammatory activity of the cytokine network even though the triggering infection may have been eliminated by appropriate antimicrobial therapy [van der Poll T, van Deventer SJ. Infect Dis Clin North Am 1999]. It has been suggested that the failure of these trials to show clinical benefit, in conjunction with recent experimental data, raises doubt about the validity of this assumption.