Sepsis: multiple abnormalities, heterogeneous responses, and evolving understanding.

ABSTRACT: Sepsis represents the host's systemic inflammatory response to a severe infection. It causes substantial human morbidity resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Despite decades of intense research, the basic mechanisms still remain elusive. In either experimental animal models of sepsis or human patients, there are substantial physiological changes, many of which may result in subsequent organ injury. Variations in age, gender, and medical comorbidities including diabetes and renal failure create additional complexity that influence the outcomes in septic patients. Specific system-based alterations, such as the coagulopathy observed in sepsis, offer both potential insight and possible therapeutic targets. Intracellular stress induces changes in the endoplasmic reticulum yie

SUBMITTER: Iskander KN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3962548 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature