Aug 25, 2020
The global burden of Sepsis continues to challenge clinicians in
its definition, diagnosis and treatment. The current Covid-19
pandemic seems to have almost taken our understanding of the Sepsis
Syndrome back decades. What are the similarities between the
current pandemic and sepsis? And what can we learn?
We have never avoided healthy controversy and in this episode Simon
Finfer puts the case that the multi-organ dysfunction and cytokine
storm seen in critically ill Covid19 infected patients is analogous
to the conventional Sepsis Syndrome and ARDS.
Perhaps if we consider the current pandemic through a Sepsis lens,
we can avoid making the same mistakes that we have made in Sepsis
research for decades resulting in no licenced treatments for the
Sepsis Syndrome.
Derek Angus agrees but makes the case that there are two distinct
differences. Firstly that the endothelial dysfunction appears
different in Covid-19 and secondly unlike sepsis in the case of
Covid-19 the pathogen itself proceeds unabated by any currently
proven treatment. This means we need a two pronged approach in
Covid19 research:
1: Strategies purely aimed at combating the virus
2: Strategies aimed at applying Sepsis lessons to the pandemic
response.
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