Identification (biology)

Physics

Internal medicine

Pathology

Disease

Homogeneous

Biology

Precision medicine

Political science

Intensive care medicine

Sepsis

MEDLINE

Botany

Critically ill

Medicine

Thermodynamics

Nature Reviews Nephrology

Sepsis is a heterogeneous disease state that is both common and consequential in critically ill patients. Unfortunately, the heterogeneity of sepsis at the individual patient level has hindered advances in the field beyond the current therapeutic standards, which consist of supportive care and antibiotics. This complexity has prompted attempts to develop a precision medicine approach, with research aimed towards stratifying patients into more homogeneous cohorts with shared biological features, potentially facilitating the identification of new therapies. Several investigators have successfully utilized leukocyte-derived mRNA and discovery-based approaches to subgroup patients on the basis of biological similarities defined by transcriptomic signatures. A critical next step is to develop a consensus sepsis subclassification system, which includes transcriptomic signatures as well as other biological and clinical data. This goal will require collaboration among various investigative groups, and validation in both existing data sets and prospective studies. Such studies are required to bring precision medicine to the bedside of critically ill patients with sepsis. In this Review, the authors examine current efforts to develop a precision medicine approach that informs the diagnosis and treatment of patients with sepsis. Prognostic and predictive enrichment strategies in sepsis might also provide insight into the mechanisms that drive sepsis-associated acute kidney injury, a common complication of sepsis.

Prognostic and predictive enrichment in sepsis