VIENNA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX), a global leader in acute care therapies, announced today the commercial launch of a new indication for the company’s oXiris set, which can now be used to help remove excessive levels of cytokines, endotoxin and other inflammatory mediators from a patient’s blood. This makes oXiris the first blood purification set that can be used in continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) and sepsis management protocols. Baxter showcased the new indication at this week’s European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) congress.

Previously, the oXiris set was only indicated for CRRT, which is a type of extracorporeal (outside the body) blood purification (EBP) used with Baxter’s Prismaflex system to manage patients with acute kidney injury (AKI).

The use of EBP to remove cytokines and endotoxin from the blood represents a promising approach to treat conditions where excessive levels of those inflammatory mediators are seen in the patient’s blood. For that reason, EBP is being studied for its potential to help address sepsis, a condition for which new therapeutic approaches have not shown to be effective.8 However, confirmation of such an association is challenging, in part due to the population of critically ill patients with AKI and/or sepsis, and because these patients often require multiple therapeutic interventions9 – a characteristic that complicates assessment of individual treatment outcomes.
“Extracorporeal blood purification for sepsis is an area where we do not have a lot of robust published research and where there is little scientific consensus, so it’s difficult for healthcare providers to determine the most effective way to treat their patients,” said Thomas Rimmelé, M.D., PhD, chairman of the Anesthesia and Resuscitation Service Department at Hôpital Edouard Herriot in Lyon, France. “What I find most interesting about the oXiris set is that it is now able to filter the blood of cytokines and endotoxin while simultaneously treating acute kidney injury.”

“Baxter is leading the way in advancing treatments for the most critically ill patients in a hospital and finding innovative solutions where there are few effective options available today,” said Reaz Rasul, general manager of Acute Therapies at Baxter. “This launch illustrates our commitment to providing healthcare providers with new applications for products used on our leading Prismaflex system to drive better care.”

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