cytokine storm

Death by Sepsis Despite the widespread belief that antibiotics still work, even if not a good idea, almost a quarter of a million people a year die in the USA alone from widespread sepsis. The best modern antibiotics didn’t save them. That’s a LOT of people. Worldwide, that figure rises to tens of millions of people a year, according to the Global Sepsis Alliance (GSA). That makes sepsis the likely leading cause of death today, according to Konrad Reinhart, M.D., Chairman of the GSA and director of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Jena, Germany. The fact is, sepsis kills regardless of age, ethnicity, location and access to care. It strikes swiftly and strikes hard. Antibiotics are failing. No new ones are coming along or ever likely to. “Developing new therapies for sepsis has been particularly challenging, with more than 25 unsuccessful drug trials,” says Jonathan S. Boomer, of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. 750,000 Americans each year contract sepsis and 225,00 die. That’s almost one third. The problem is the intense inflammatory response that has become poetically christened the ‘cytokine storm.’ Patients with sepsis may present with fever, shock, altered mental status, and organ dysfunction. It’s all due to bacteria running riot in the patient’s body.

Death by Sepsis Despite the widespread belief that antibiotics still work, even if not a good idea, almost a quarter of a million people a year die in the USA alone from widespread sepsis. The best modern antibiotics didn’t save them. That’s a LOT of people. Worldwide, that figure rises to tens of millions of people a year, according to the Global Sepsis Alliance (GSA). That makes sepsis the likely leading cause of death today, according to Konrad Reinhart, M.D., Chairman of the GSA and director of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Jena, Germany. The fact is, sepsis kills regardless of age, ethnicity, location and access to care. It strikes swiftly and strikes hard. Antibiotics are failing. No new ones are coming along or ever likely to. “Developing new therapies for sepsis has been particularly challenging, with more than 25 unsuccessful drug trials,” says Jonathan S. Boomer, of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. 750,000 Americans each year contract sepsis and 225,00 die. That’s almost one third. The problem is the intense inflammatory response that has become poetically christened the ‘cytokine storm.’ Patients with sepsis may present with fever, shock, altered mental status, and organ dysfunction. It’s all due to bacteria running riot in the patient’s body.