Volatile anesthetics are known to have immunomodulatory effects in conditions of organ injury. A recent study in an experimental sepsis model has shown remarkably improved survival when mice were exposed to volatile anesthetics. In the present study, we show that hexafluoroisopropanol - a water-soluble primary sevoflurane metabolite - has beneficial effects on the overall survival in a murine model of cecal ligation and puncture. Seven-day survival as well as tissue damage markers including transaminases and high mobility group box protein-1 were assessed as measures of end organ damage. In animals undergoing cecal ligation and puncture procedure hexafluoroisopropanol conditioning - but not late postconditioning 24 hours after sepsis induction - significantly increased survival rate (17% vs. 77%, p = 0.037) and attenuated secretion of organ damage markers. This study shows survival benefits by administration of the metabolite of a volatile anesthetic. If successfully translated, hexafluoroisopropanol might offer interesting therapeutic opportunities in the future treatment of abdominal sepsis. ; © 2013 Herrmann et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. © 2013 by Name of Public Library of Science, PLos ONE ; Funding came from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Berne, Switzerland, Grant No. 320030_141216; National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA, NIH P01 HL60678 and R01 HL71626; Emdo Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland.