Fig 1. Patient enrollment.

Blood was collected from each patient twice: once on day 0 and again on day 7. ^aBecause the reader was not ready in time, quantitative determinations could not be performed by ICT on day 0 and day 7 in one case. ^bFor the same reason, quantitative determinations by ICT could not be performed on day 0 in one case. ^cBy day 7, five patients had died, three had been transferred to another hospital, and two had been discharged. ^dThere were 14 points in time on day 7 when infection was suspected, but the patient did not fulfill at least two criteria for SIRS. The data at those 14 points were excluded from the analysis.