Background

Effective antibiotic treatment of intensive care unit (ICU) patients that have overwhelming infections, including sep-sis, severe sepsis and septic shock, remains a significant challenge to physicians world-wide [1-7]. Therapy that is not initiated rapidly or with sufficient antibiotic spectrum increases in-hospital mortality [3,4]. Indeed, sepsis itself has an incidence in the population that exceeds colon cancer, breast cancer, and AIDS, with mortality rates of 30 % for mild to moderate sepsis and up to 82 % for severe sepsis and septic shock [5]. Despite advances in critical care medicine, the incidence of sepsis continues to in-crease and the prognosis remains poor. Although there has been significant investment into treatments that limit the various inflammatory and coagulation cascades, none of these therapies have been able to demonstrate the same outcome benefits as effective antibiotic therapy [3,8]. It is thought that optimisation of antibiotic dosing may well further improve clinical outcomes for ICU patients with infections