Why carry out this study?

Hyperinflammation, which is often observed in patients with sepsis and septic shock, leads to vasoplegia, capillary leakage, and circulatory insufficiency resulting in the clinical picture of shock.

Cytokines play a key role in the development of shock, so their extracorporeal elimination might, in addition to treating the cause of shock, be useful.

The question of interest was, which cytokines are adsorbed by the adsorber CytoSorb® and is there a saturation kinetic during application?

What was learned from the study?

The CytoSorb® adsorber can eliminate pro- as well as anti-inflammatory cytokines; however, the clearance of the different cytokines dropped to 10–30 ml/min after 6 h not leading to any relevant change in patients’ blood.

As the unselective and low adsorption of different cytokines did not lead to a change in patients’ blood, routine clinical use cannot be recommended in this indication.