Highly purified vitamin B2 presents a promising therapeutic strategy for sepsis and septic shock.

Highly purified vitamin B2 (riboflavin 5'-sodium phosphate; purity > 97%) treatment by intravenous infusion at doses above those used clinically to treat vitamin B2 deficiency showed therapeutic effects in mice not only in cases of endotoxin- and exotoxin-induced shock but also in cases of gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial infection even after the toxemia had already begun.