Fig. 2

Inter-individual injury-associated response patterns in critically ill patients. Patients with critical illness respond differently to injury (e.g., sepsis). Whereas patient “A” undergoes a pronounced inflammatory phase (net effects are shown) with regain of immunological homeostasis and subsequent survival, patient “B” enters a persisting phase of injury-associated immunosuppression (IAI). In IAI, viral reactivation rates, secondary (re-) infection rates, and mortality is increased. This underlines the importance of inter-individual response patterns and need for individual patient characterization before application of interventional therapeutic approaches (adapted from Hotchkiss et al., 2013 [4])