Using the medical literature to solve patient problems is challenging and rewarding. For intensive care physicians, this evidence-based medicine approach is more compelling when basic critical appraisal skills are developed. We highlight the important methodological points for interpreting the literature on treatment, using a cogent example from the critical care literature--monoclonal antibody therapy in sepsis. It is likely that as we move into the 1990s, growth in the number of articles on immunotherapy in the sepsis syndrome will parallel the growth of the general biomedical literature.