This book brings together basic scientists or clinicians from a variety of different backgrounds - immunology, infectious diseases or critical care - who share a common interest in understanding the changes that occur in immune responses in sepsis. It provides an up-to-date and unrivalled synthesis of current research in this rapidly developing field.

Inhalt
The Four Ds of the Danger Model: Distress, Damage, Destruction, and Death.- The Immune Response in Critical Illness: Excessive, Inadequate or Dysregulated.- Genomics of the Sepsis Syndrome.- The Pro-Inflammatory Cytokine Cascade.- Inhibitory Cytokines.- Interleukin-1? and Interleukin-18: Two Cytokine Precursors for Interleukin-1? Converting Enzyme (Caspase-1).- Bacterial Toxins Induce Specific Cytokine Patterns In Vivo and In Vitro.- The Acute Phase Response and Enhancing Resistance to Bacterial Infection.- Cytokines as Mediators of Lung Innate Immunity.- Fetuin Opsonizes Macrophage-Deactivating Cations.- LPS Receptors.- Regulation of Cellular Responses to Bacterial Endotoxin.- The Role of Nitric Oxide in the Initiation of Inflammation in Shock.- Regulation of Neutrophil Activation in Acute Lung Injury and SIRS.- Neutrophils and Acute Lung Injury.- Lymphocyte Activation, Anergy, and Apoptosis in Polymicrobial Sepsis.- Trauma Mediators Favor Differentiation of Monocytes to Macrophage Rather Than to Dendritic Cells.- Programmed Cell Death (Apoptosis) and the Immunologic Derangements of Critical Illness.- The Interaction Between the Coagulation System and the Systemic Inflammatory Mediators.- The Endothelium as an Immune Organ: Active Player and Passive Target.- Immunoregulation in Shock, Trauma, and Sepsis.- Endotoxemia in Healthy Subjects as a Human Model of Inflammation.- Monitoring Immune Status in Critically Ill Patients.- Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptors in Systemic Inflammation.- Cytokine Neutralization: An Overview.- Immunostimulation with Cytokines in Patients with 'Immunoparalysis'.- Prospects for a Vaccine to Prevent Bacterial Sepsis.