Faculty Research
Alexandre A. Steiner
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences The American Heart Association awarded a grant in the amount of $308,000 to Alexandre A. Steiner, Pharm.D., Ph.D., to study the benefit of naturally occurring hypothermia in patients with septic shock.
occurs in some cases of SIRS/sepsis (10%) is a phenomenon that continues to puzzle physicians and scientists.
The systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is a serious complication in hospitalized patients. It is commonly caused by infection, in which case it is named sepsis. This malady is associated with unacceptably high mortality rates, which may be as high as 70% in those patients who develop circulatory shock. At least 750,000 cases of sepsis occur annually in the USA and account for more than $16 billion in healthcare expenses.
It is not uncommon for a septic patient who develops hypothermia to be re-warmed with the use of heating blankets. This practice, however, is not based on solid evidence showing that the hypothermia that occurs naturally in septic patients is detrimental. Preliminary studies by Dr. Steiner led to the hypothesis that, in the most severe cases of SIRS, naturally occurring hypothermia relieves the imbalance between oxygen supply and demand during cardio respiratory dysfunction and aids the host better than fever.
As traditional anti-inflammatory therapy shows little efficacy in septic patients, it becomes evident that the outcome of sepsis relies largely on the host’s own defense strategies. Whereas the fever (elevation in body temperature) that develops in the overwhelming majority of septic patients (90%) is considered a host-defense strategy, the hypothermia (fall in body temperature) that
This project has strong clinical implications, as it will provide the foundation for possible clinical studies to evaluate whether septic patients with cardiovascular shock can benefit from naturally occurring hypothermia. The possibility exists that lives could be saved simply by not re-warming (at least not to a full extent) those septic-shock patients who become hypothermic.
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