The comprehensive coverage of the incidence, etiology, pathophysiology, definition, and therapy of sepsis and septic shock gives you the knowledge you need to keep up with modern therapeutic strategies.
The authors are either basic scientists or clinical researchers whose goal is to present the newest aspects of their work in comprehensible language. They clearly show the new perspectives that are emerging in the treatment of sepsis and septic shock.

From the viewpoint of a health economist, the intensive care unit (leU) is a particularly fascinating phenomenon. It is the epitome of "high-tech" medicine and frequently portrayed as the place where life-saving miracles are routinely wrought. But the popular imagina tion is also caught up in the darker side, when agonizing decisions have to be made to avoid futile and inhuman continuation of expen sive treatments. My analytical interests led me to approach these issues by asking what the evidence tells us about which leu activities are very bene ficial in relationship to their costs and...

This book represents the collective efforts of several excellent, clini cian-scientists who have devoted many years of their lives and many hours in each day to the application of physiological principles to the bedside care of critically ill patients. The universal challenge of car diovascular instability confronts all health care providers who treat patients in an acute care setting. Whether that be in the field or Emergency Department, general ward, operating suite or intensive care unit, all patients carry a common theme of potential life-taking processes which must to identified and...

The manuscripts in this book were generated from a conference occurring at the University of Heidelberg in September 1996. These manuscripts have been reviewed and updated by the designated authors in late 1997 for publication in early 1998. Conferences occur for a variety of reasons. These include the need to exchange information where complex activities are undergoing reassessment or change. For the emergency and critical care man agement of stroke this is certainly the situation. Today, both the pri mary care and the neurologic physician must provide medical care in an environment where...

Measuring the quality of a complex service like critical care that combines the highest technology with the most intimate caring is a challenge. Recently, con- sumers, clinicians, and payers have requested more formal assessments and comparisons of the quality and costs of medical care 2]. Donabedian 1] pro- posed a framework for thinking about the quality of medical care that separates quality into three components: structure, process, and outcome. An instructive analogy for understanding this framework is to imagine a food critic evaluating the quality of a restaurant. The critic might...

This volume contains contributions by well-known scientists and clinicians in the fields of microbiology, infectious diseases, physiology, internal medicine, surgery, anaesthesiology, and intensive care medicine. It provides an up-to-date overview of the mediators and pathophysology of sepsis and septic shock as well as the latest therapeutic approaches.

This aim of this book is to focus on a very common situation seen in medical practice, the acute catabolic state. This pathophysiological sit- uation is rarely discussed as a separate entity, possibly because it is seen in all specialties of medicine and results from a great diversity of agents, insults, and diseases. It thus seemed to be high time to gather the most important and up-to-date knowledge on this entity, and the primary aim of the book is to offer a collection of updated information on the acute catabolic state. Another objective of the book is to make clear that, apart from the...

Dysfunction of the gastrointestinal tract in critically ill patients has recently become a focus of intensive research. This book, the first one on this topic, is a comprehensive overview of what is currently known about the role of the gut in patients requiring intensive care. The definitions and pathogenesis of intestinal dysfunction are critically evaluated. Currently available and potential new ways to monitor intestinal function in the intensive care setting are presented. Emphasis has been placed on the evaluation of therapeutic strategies in the prevention and treatment of gut...