European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology
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Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. · Jun 2009
Enhanced T-cell apoptosis in human septic shock is associated with alteration of the costimulatory pathway.
T-cell apoptosis during septic shock (SS) has been associated with deleterious outcome, but the mechanisms of apoptosis are not well understood. As T-cells are not infected in bacterial infection, our hypothesis was that deleterious interactions between lymphocytes and monocytes could be involved. This is a cross-sectional study of 27 patients presenting with community-acquired SS, 23 infected patients without SS and 18 controls. ⋯ The synthesis of interleukin-2 was decreased in patients with SS compared to the other groups, while secretions of interferon-gamma and TNF-alpha were not altered. Ten surviving patients with SS showed a trend towards the normalisation of these parameters on day 7. In SS, T-cell apoptosis is related, at least in part, to the alteration of the costimulatory pathway, which, in turn, leads to significant modification of the cytokine network.