Evidence Hub

Functional immune profiling of hyper- and hypo-inflammatory subphenotypes of critical illness: a secondary analysis

E. S. Halstead, D. McKeone, A. Samuelsen, Shouhao Zhou, A. Bonavia

Frontiers in Immunology, 2025

42 participants · 8 citations

Abstract

Introduction Recent studies of adult sepsis patients demonstrate the existence of two subphenotypes that differ in risk of mortality: a hyper-inflammatory subphenotype with a high risk of mortality, and a hypo-inflammatory or “not hyper-inflamed” subphenotype with a relatively lower risk of mortality. We recently investigated the association of organ dysfunction with ex vivo immune profiling in sixty (60) critically ill adult patients with sepsis. In this secondary analysis we measured cytokine biomarkers with an automated, microfluidic immunoassay device (Ella™) and sought to investigate the functional immune profiles of patients in the hyper/hypo-inflammatory subphenotype groups. Methods Subjects were consecutively identified adults, older than 18 years, and enrolled within 48 hours of sepsis onset. Whole blood cytokine analysis was performed in all patients. Additionally, ex vivo cytokine production was measured following 4h of stimulation. Cytokine concentrations were measured using the Ella™ automated immunoassay system. Results Subjects were divided into hypo-inflammatory (42 patients) and hyper-inflammatory (18 patients) subtypes using a previously validated parsimonious model based on concentrations of IL-6, TNFR1 and bicarbonate. The hyper- and hypo-inflammatory clusters demonstrated a near four-fold difference in 30-day mortality (44.4% vs 11.9%, p=0.0046). Following 4h of ex vivo stimulation with LPS, TNF production was lower in the hyper-inflammatory group as…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a secondary / pooled analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 42 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free