[Intenational breakthroughs in critical care medicine 2020]

The main progress in international critical care medicine in 2020 are: the reflections on the mandatory of implementation of the 1-hour cluster treatment strategy for sepsis are still continuing; the "metabolic resuscitation" therapy, represented by large dose of vitamin C, failed to yield positive results; the global epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread, with evidences indicating Dexamethasone, Remdesivir or interferon β-1b (IFNβ-1b), Lopinavir/Ritonavir and ribavirin as promising therapy; conservative oxygen therapy did not exert positive effects neither for mechanical ventilated patients nor for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patient; the concept of lung- and diaphragm-protective mechanical ventilation illuminates a new opportunity to potentially improve clinical outcomes for critically ill patients; there was no positive evidence for stress ulcer prophylaxis and timing of endoscopy for severe acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding; early initiation of renal-replacement therapy (RRT) for critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) has not shown positive effect. At last, artificial intelligence (AI) has shown good potential in identifying ARDS phenotypes and early predicting sepsis.