Introduction

Severe sepsis and multiorgan failure (MOF) are major causes of death in the ICU. The extracorporeal cytokine adsorption column (ECAC; Cytosorb®, CytoSorbents Corporation, USA), a critical care focused therapeutic device, results in rapid in vitro and in vivo elimination of several key cytokines and prevents organ failure. Use of ECAC in patients with sepsis is a new area of research with insufficient data to promote large prospective RCTs. Studies published to date have shown promising results. We report our clinical experience with ECAC for severe sepsis/septic shock/MOF patients.

Methods

A retrospective evaluation of ECAC in patients admitted to a tertiary ICU from November 13 to October 14 to analyze: clinical safety; selection of a subgroup of patients where it could be used; selection of timing for initiation; number of device filters required per patient; and selective markers to identify above initiation. Patients were managed with standard of care (SOC; antibiotics, vasopressors, i.v. fluids, sepsis dosed steroids) and ECAC as adjuvant therapy. Vitals, APACHE II and SOFA scores were measured.

Results

Nineteen ICU patients (14 men, five women; 24 to 72 years; average ICU stay 10 days; average ventilator days 9) with APACHE II >17 (except one with dengue shock syndrome), SOFA score ≥11 (n = 16) and the majority having infection largely in the lung (n = 8; alone or with UTI and blood infection) followed by the abdomen (n = 4), UTI (n = 3) and others (n = 4) were given ECAC (total ECAC = 31). Predicted mortality (PM) was >40% in 16, >30% in two and <30% in two (tropical infections) patients. Duration of therapy was 6 hours (no. of ECAC = 18) and 8 hours (n = 4; no. of ECAC = 5) for the majority of patients. Overall, four patients (two with tropical infections and two with PM >40%) survived; three of them had were ECAC early (<24 hours of admission). The majority of patients (n = 11) who died could be given ECAC only once. Of patients who died, seven were given ECAC late (>24 hours). APACHE scores before and after ECAC therapy were available for eight patients who died; APACHE score decreased >5 points in five patients after single application of ECAC.

Conclusion

ECAC can be used as adjuvant therapy in treatment of severe sepsis/septic shock/MOF. Our patients had high PM and four could be saved with use of ECAC. We could expect a better outcome if ECAC was used early (<24 hours) during treatment. However, future well-designed studies are needed to clarify the role of ECAC in patients with MOF/septic shock.