A new era for sepsis treatment? Understanding sepsis as a consequence of host immune response

Abstract

Sepsis is a syndrome of increasing prevalence and accounts for high mortality in the intensive care unit. The search for sepsis therapies in the past decades have been marked by disappointment and failure. More recently however, new insights have been gained in the process of sepsis which have broadened the field of therapeutic approaches. Elucidation of the signal transduction pathways that are involved in innate immunity have begun to link the pathogen-host interaction to the resulting broad host response. Insights into the host response have resulted in a greater understanding of its complexity as an intricate web involving inflammation, haemostasis and the endothelium. This recent explosion in understanding coincides with the first success in sepsis therapy with the advent of activated protein C and may herald a new era for sepsis treatment.

• activated protein C
• antithrombin III
• antitumour necrosis factor αcoagulationendothelium
• endotoxin
• fibrinolysis
• Gram-negative sepsis
• inflammation
• lipopolysaccharide
• sepsis
• tissue factor pathway inhibitor
• toll-like receptor