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The ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis Consortium: Rationale, Design, and Feasibility of a National Platform for Phenotyping

Wesley H Self1, Carolyn S Calfee2, Samuel M Brown3

  • 1Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN; Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.

Chest
|July 13, 2026
PubMed

Insights

The ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis (APS) Consortium study is rapidly enrolling critically ill adults. This research is generating valuable data and biospecimens to improve understanding and treatment of these severe conditions.

Area of Science:

  • Critical care medicine
  • Translational research
  • Respiratory and infectious diseases

Background:

  • The National Institutes of Health established the ARDS, Pneumonia, and Sepsis (APS) Consortium to advance biological understanding and therapeutic development for these critical illnesses.
  • The consortium aims to accelerate the development of new treatments for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), pneumonia, and sepsis.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine if the APS Consortium study is efficiently generating data and biospecimens from a large cohort of critically ill adults.
  • To facilitate the precise phenotyping of ARDS, pneumonia, and sepsis through comprehensive data and biospecimen collection.

Main Methods:

  • A multicenter, longitudinal, prospective observational cohort study involving 4,000 critically ill adults over 4 years.
  • Collection of extensive data and biospecimens to characterize participants' health status, acute illness, and recovery.
  • Feasibility assessment based on the first 1,000 participants, evaluating recruitment, characteristics, biospecimen collection, and confirmed diagnoses via expert adjudication.

Main Results:

  • Recruitment of the first 1,000 participants was completed ahead of schedule in under 13 months.
  • Participants had a median age of 64 years, with high rates of vasopressor (75%) and invasive mechanical ventilation (50%) use; 25% experienced in-hospital mortality within 4 weeks.
  • High biospecimen collection rates were achieved, including blood (99%), upper respiratory swabs (98%), urine (80%), and gastrointestinal samples (65%). Expert adjudication classified 40% with ARDS, 52% with pneumonia, and 89% with sepsis.

Conclusions:

  • The APS Consortium Phenotyping Study is successfully creating a cohort of critically ill patients with severe disease.
  • The study is yielding a rich dataset and biospecimen repository crucial for understanding ARDS, pneumonia, and sepsis.
  • The study is on track to meet its enrollment goal of 4,000 participants.
Abstract

Keywords:
acute respiratory distress syndromecritical carephenotypepneumoniaprecision medicinerecoverysepsis

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