Monitoring the immune response in sepsis: a rational approach to administration of immunoadjuvant therapies

Preliminary studies suggest that a subgroup of septic patients with severe immune alterations is at high risk of death or nosocomial infection and therefore could benefit from adjunctive immune stimulating therapies. There is thus an urgent need for robust biomarkers usable in routine conditions evaluating rapidly evolving immune status in patients. Although functional testing remains a gold standard, its standardization remains challenging. Therefore, surrogate markers such as monocyte HLA-DR expression, are being developed. Such biomarkers of immune functionality will enable a novel approach in the design of clinical trials evaluating immunostimulating therapies in sepsis at the right time and in the right patient.