Clinical Trial to Treat Septic Shock Under Way at UMC

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA - UA News ^ | May 31, 2011 | by Katie Riley, Arizona Health Sciences Center

[Cindy]

SNIPPET: "The death rate can be as high as 60 percent for people with underlying medical problems, and some 250,000 Americans die of severe sepsis annually.

A clinical trial of a new device to treat severe sepsis – the leading cause of death in hospital intensive care units – is under way at University Medical Center.

"This study is important because sepsis is a life-threatening illness, and it's increased every year in the past 20 years despite all our advances in medicine," said Dr. Harold Szerlip, professor in the University of Arizona Department of Medicine and UA principal investigator of the clinical trial coordinated through the UA Clinical and Translational Sciences Research Center.

Sepsis is caused by a bacterial infection that can begin anywhere in the body. Common places where an infection might start include the bowel (peritonitis), kidneys (urinary tract infection) or the lungs (bacterial pneumonia)."

[HiTech RedNeck]

This sounds like a cousin of a hemodialysis machine, but as best as I can tell it uses a different method to purify the blood. It somehow manages to “measure” then “remove” toxins. How the “remover” is tied to the “measurer” is a puzzle to me, or why it would even need to be — the remover should scarf up as much of the toxin as it can, I’d think.

I have a cat that’s very curious about this, having almost died from an abscess. Except for possible cost issues I wouldn’t know why this couldn’t be used to help pets suffering from sepsis.

[Right Wing Assault]

EUPRHATES compares the safety and efficacy of a Spectral Diagnostics device, already widely used in Europe and Japan, that measures and removes bacterial toxins from the blood, against standard medical therapy alone.

So why are we behind on this?

[Wonder Warthog]

"How the “remover” is tied to the “measurer” is a puzzle to me, or why it would even need to be — the remover should scarf up as much of the toxin as it can, I’d think."

Possibly because if used too long, it'll start removing necessary biochemicals from the bloodstream. Methods of chemical sequestration (removal) are rarely completely specific....just selective. That is, they will preferentially remove substance "X" if it is present, but if not, then it will start removing substance "Y", which may not be desirable.

[waxer1]

17 years ago my son Timmy who was two had leukemia. He got sick and died of sepsis within 8 hours of onset. There was nothing we could do. Even his doctor God rest his soul was deveistated.

I hope they are sucessful with this.

[SaraJohnson]

I’m sorry to hear that your baby passed away. Sepsis is serious business.

[Cindy]

I’m so sorry about Timmy Waxer1.