Future options for (economically) sustainable research in sepsis

The relentless increase in healthcare costs and the global economic crisis require us to rethink the way research is done. The heterogeneity of patients is a major challenge in designing and coordinating high-quality studies about sepsis. Studies on new treatments and devices, such as polymyxin B hemoperfusion, must be optimized not only for potential benefits for a specific population (i.e. efficacy), but also for their eventual implementation in real-world situations (i.e. effectiveness) and for economic costs (i.e. efficiency). In this regard, theragnosis and newer statistical tools could help us obtain useful information from real-life observational data. In this review, we discuss the basic components required for sustainable research in polymyxin B hemoperfusion.