A question is “what are the optimal targets for anticoagulant therapies?”

A high mortality rate is found among septic patients with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Anticoagulants have been used for treating septic DIC especially in Japanese clinical settings; however, their effectiveness is quite controversial across studies. According to several randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses, antithrombin and recombinant thrombomodulin had no therapeutic benefit in the treatment of sepsis. However, the majority of the previous research did not discuss “septic DIC” but simply “sepsis”, and some reviews showed that anticoagulants were benefit only in septic DIC. Although immunothrombosis plays an important role in early host defense, it can lead to DIC and organ failure if dysregulated. Therefore, we advocate anticoagulant therapies might have beneficial effects, but research on optimal patient selection is currently lacking.