Introduction
Sepsis is a pathophysiological syndrome characterised by an overwhelming
inflammatory and immune response to a bacterial, viral or fungal infection that can lead
to multi-organ dysfunction and death (Singer et al., 2016). Sepsis is
the leading cause of mortality in intensive care units with an annual
global incidence of 49 million cases and 11 million deaths (Rudd et al.,
2020). Standard of care treatment for sepsis consists of antibiotics,
fluid resuscitation and vasopressors (Rhodes et al., 2017), with
continuous renal replacement therapy being increasingly used in
critically ill patients (Bellomo, Baldwin, Ronco & Kellum, 2021). These
interventions are mostly aimed towards keeping the patient alive in the
expectation that organ function should recover following resolution of
the infection. However, patients who recover from severe sepsis
frequently exhibit a degree of chronic organ dysfunction. Currently
there are no treatments that reverse sepsis-induce organ dysfunction.