Commentary
Steroids in sepsis: another swing of the pendulum in our clinical trials
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Correspondence: Jean-Louis Vincent jlvincent@ulb.ac.be
Department of Intensive Care, Université libre de Bruxelles, Erasme Hospital, route de Lennik 808, 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Critical Care 2008, 12:141 doi:10.1186/cc6861
See related letter by Bauer et al., http://ccforum.com/content/12/4/426
Published: 29 April 2008Abstract
Many studies have been conducted to try and find interventions to treat patients with severe sepsis, but with little success. In several cases, initial apparent beneficial effects have not been confirmed in later trials. The story of steroids in sepsis is one example of this pendulum effect, with initial success in the study by Annane et al. tempered by the more recent negative results of the Corticus study. The reasons for this pendulum effect are likely related, at least in part, to issues of clinical trial design and the way in which clinical trials in intensive care unit patients are developed, conducted and assessed needs to be critically reassessed.