Strengths and limitations
septic
The obvious strength of our study is the use of randomization to minimize selection bias. However, this study has some limitations. First, blinding of the interventions was not performed. Second, because this was a pilot, single-center study, generalizability is insufficient. Third, the present study did not have a control group that was not treated with CRRT. Therefore, this study did not provide information about endogenous clearance rates in septic patients, indicating that part of the decreased cytokine levels in blood may not depend on CRRT. Fourth, the sampling time windows (2–6 h and 12–24 h) were relatively wide. However, no significant differences in sampling time windows were observed between the two groups (Table 