Former studies showed that early IL-6 measurements reliably correlate with multiorgan failure rates, complicated clinical courses and mortality in association with critical care conditions, such as polytrauma [24, 25], abdominal-aortic surgery [26, 27], pancreatitis [28], sepsis [29–31], acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) [32, 33], cardiogenic shock [34, 35] or neurologic disorders [36]. Here, IL6 is linked to acute respiratory distress syndrome.