The systemic immune response to trauma: an overview of pathophysiology and treatment.

ABSTRACT: Improvements in the control of haemorrhage after trauma have resulted in the survival of many people who would otherwise have died from the initial loss of blood. However, the danger is not over once bleeding has been arrested and blood pressure restored. Two-thirds of patients who die following major trauma now do so as a result of causes other than exsanguination. Trauma evokes a systemic reaction that includes an acute, non-specific, immune response associated, paradoxically, with reduced resistance to infection. The result is damage to multiple organs caused by the initial cascade of inflammation aggravated by subsequent sepsis to which the body has become susceptible. This Series examines the biological mechanisms and clinical implications of the cascade of events caused by large-scal

SUBMITTER: Lord JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4729362 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature