The elevated levels of sRAGE found in our study, as in others, might represent the septic status of the patients as splice-variants of RAGE or shed variants of cell surface RAGE. In contrast to animal studies where a protective effect of sRAGE was seen, we found that sRAGE levels were higher in patients with more inflammation and in non-survivors. This finding could be related to shed variants of cell surface RAGE but this aspect was not one of our objectives. The ELISA we used did not differentiate between splicing variants and the shed variants of RAGE.