Biomarkers and Precision Medicine: State of the Art

Critical illness syndromes, including sepsis and the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), are identified using consensus definitions that are based on broad, clinically available criteria and include patients with heterogeneous biology. This heterogeneity is a barrier to developing and testing effective therapies for these syndromes. Biomarkers identify clinically distinct molecular phenotypes of ARDS and sepsis. These molecular phenotypes are associated with differences in mortality and predict response to several treatments in retrospective analyses of clinical trials. Biomarkers can be used for prognostic and predictive enrichment of clinical trials in critical illness to incorporate precision medicine in critical care.