Cytokine release in sepsis

Ian Burkovskiy, Joel Sardinha, Juan Zhou, Christian Lehmann

Department of Anesthesia, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.

DOI: 10.4236/abb.2013.49114                

Abstract

Despite the advances in the therapeutic approaches, health care protocols and policies, sepsis continues to be an important problem in clinical medicine. High lethality of sepsis cases calls for a detailed and critically important study of the pathophysiology of sepsis. In this review, we discuss pathomechanisms of sepsis and the role of cytokines that are released in sepsis. We propose that the systemic levels of cytokines are not always reflecting the pathological picture and the immune status of the patient. One of the emerging approaches which may bring an effective treatment strategy exploits the endocannabinoid system for its immunomodulatory properties. Following from that, the research in this particular field is very important as it can bring understanding behind the complicated pathophysiology of sepsis.

Keywords

Sepsis; Cytokine; Inflammation; Immunology

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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