Cooper Researchers Uncover Important Link In Sepsis Survival

Cooper University Hospital's internationally renowned team of Critical Care and Emergency Department physicians have completed original research that could have major implications on the future development of effective treatments for patients with severe sepsis and septic shock, the leading cause of death in intensive care units. The study, which was funded in part by the Emergency Medicine Foundation and the American Heart Association, will be published in the January 2007 edition of Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Sepsis is the body's inflammatory response to severe infection. It disrupts the function of organ systems and can lead to critical illness, organ failure and death. Each year 750,000 people develop severe sepsis in the U.S., and 28 percent to 50 percent of these patients die.The study - one of the first of its kind - evaluated blood flow in the smallest blood vessels (microcirculatory blood flow) in patients with severe sepsis/septic shock. Using state-of-the-art advanced microscopic imaging technology, researchers at Cooper measured microcirculatory blood flow within six hours of diagnosis, after initiating early goal-directed therapy for sepsis. When data was analysed comparing survivors to non-survivors, researchers found that early measurements of microcirculatory blood flow were most impaired in sepsis patients who ultimately would not survive.Lead investigator Stephen Trzeciak, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor and an attending physician in the Section of Critical Care Medicine and the Department of Emergency Medicine at Cooper University Hospital, notes that this research is preliminary and will probably be the first in a line of clinical investigations locally, nationally and internationally-perhaps some of which will lead to better treatments for the deadly illness."Our study shows that microcirculatory flow disruption is more pronounced in severe sepsis and septic shock patients who do NOT survive the illness," he explains. "This is important because it is the first time the small blood vessels have been studied in human subjects during resuscitation. We now believe that monitoring microcirculatory blood flow may provide a window to identify the effects of conventional or novel treatments for sepsis." The Cooper researchers are the first in the United States to use new state-of-the-art technology that places a small device under the patient's tongue allowing doctors to record and measure microcirculatory blood flow. Only Cooper and two centres in Europe have published this type of research on human patients with septic shock.Cooper University Hospital has an international reputation in Critical Care Medicine and is one of the country's leading centres for sepsis research and treatment. The Cooper physicians and researchers who conducted this study are involved in multiple research endeavours related to sepsis treatment and have formed a multidisciplinary research group called the Microcirculatory Alterations in Resuscitation and Shock (MARS) investigators.(Source: Annals of Emergency Medicine : Cooper University Hospital : December 2006.)