Recently published papers: treating sepsis, measuring troponin and managing the obese.

Sepsis and septic shock continue to contribute to our workload and stimulate our research activities although many fundamental questions remain. Studies reported on here focus on inotrope use and a novel way of predicting inotrope response. Continuing this theme more fundamental work is reported examining the mitochondrial respiratory chain and the effects of sepsis coupled with interesting work on lactic acidosis. Troponin raises its head again and we are still left quizzing over its value in the ICU. Finally we discuss a paper on the outcome of the obese patient on a general ICU. Like sepsis a continuing challenge.