Articles: sepsis.
-
Critical care medicine · Jul 1982
Comparative StudyCirculatory responses to afterloading with phenylephrine in hyperdynamic sepsis.
We assessed cardiac function by acute pressure loading with phenylephrine in 7 patients who had hyperdynamic sepsis and in 8 patients who had heart disease. All patients with sepsis had a positive Limulus lysate teat, a septic focus, and a cardiac output (CO) greater than 6.0 L/min. ⋯ In patients with heart disease, CI and SI decreased significantly, whereas SVRI increased significantly. The marked differences in response to phenylephrine by the two groups suggest lack of cardiac dysfunction in patients with hyperdynamic sepsis.
-
Twenty-one patients were seen with puerperal sepsis owing to group B streptococci (GBS), resulting in an attack rate of 2/1,000 deliveries. Most were young primiparous black women from a population with a known high incidence of GBS carriage. The association among abdominal delivery, endometritis, and puerperal sepsis was striking. ⋯ Seven neonates developed serious GBS infections; intrauterine exposure occurred in at least four cases. Fetal exposure to GBS also occurred in three of four cases in which parturients with GBS bacteremia were delivered of their infants by cesarean section. Because of the high incidence of puerperal and perinatal GBS infections in this population, antibiotic prophylaxis regimens may be beneficial.
-
Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Apr 1982
Human endothelial cell proliferation inhibiting activity in the sera of patients suffering from 'shock' or 'sepsis'.
The response of DNA-synthesis of human endothelial cells to sera derived from twenty-five patients suffering from 'sepsis' or 'shock' was measured by autoradiographic methods. In eight cases a constant decrease in proliferative response was found compared to that of sera from healthy donors. These proliferation values were shown to lie below the '60%-of-control-line'. ⋯ These results correlated well with the clinical state and outcome of patients but not with any of the over sixty clinical, therapeutic, laboratory and post-mortem parameters of investigation. Evidence is presented for a proliferation inhibiting activity in sera of patients in clinically poor states, and some physico-chemical properties of this 'factor' are described. Lethal injury to the cells or an impairment of cellular migration could not be observed within the observation periods used in this study.