Data collection Clinical data was collected at the time of study enrollment and after hospital discharge from the individual medical chart. Blood was cultured in a set of blood culture bottles, FA Plus (aerobic) and FN Plus Sunitinib (anaerobic), in the BacT/ALERT 3D automated blood culture system (bioM��rieux, Marcy l’Etoile, France). Detection of microbial DNA in blood samples was performed with the LifeCycler? SeptiFast test MGRADE (Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel Switzerland). The IPS and biomarkers for sepsis were gathered within 18 hours after the initial blood culture request. Patients with an IPS of more than 14 points were considered positive for infection. The following laboratory parameters were used: CRP (Latex test, Beckman Coulter, Brea, USA; lower limit of quantification (LLOQ): 0.

04 mg/dl), PCT and IL-6 (both, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd; LLOQ: 0.03 ng/ml and 1.6 pg/ml, respectively), LBP (IMMULITE 2000 Immunoassay System, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen Germany; LLOQ: 0.8 ��g/ml), bilirubin (Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd; LLOQ: 0.11 mg/dl), and WBC (Stromatolyser-4DS, Sysmex, Norderstedt, Germany; LLOQ: not provided). All laboratory work was performed at an ISO 9001:2008 certified and EN ISO 15189:2008 accredited medical laboratory. Ethical issues, anonymization, and data security The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Medical University of Vienna (EC-No. 518/2011) and was carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964), including current revisions, and the rules of Good Clinical Practice of the European Commission.

Prior to enrollment, patients were informed in detail about the trial and signed a consent form to confirm their participation. To ensure anonymity, every participant was consecutively assigned an identification number, which was used for further analysis. Additional anonymous clinical information and raw data can be requested from the corresponding author. Statistical analysis Continuous data is presented as median and quartiles (Q1, Q3), categorical data as counts and percentages. Data was statistically analyzed using non-parametric tests, including the Pearson��s ��2-test and the Mann-Whitney U test. Furthermore, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the parameters investigated were drawn to compute the area under the curve (AUC). The DeLong test was used to compare ROC-AUCs of different parameters.

To set an optimal cut-off value for optimal differentiation, the Youden-index method was applied. For dichotomized parameters, sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value (NPV), and positive predictive value (PPV) were Entinostat calculated and given with 95% confidence intervals. Statistical significance was defined at a p-value less than 0.05 (two-tailed). When appropriate, accumulation of the ��-error probability related to multiple testing was corrected using the Bonferroni-Holm method.