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
From the contents: 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.- Bacterial Toxines 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.- Programmed Cell Death (Apoptosis) and the Immunologic Derangements of Critical Illness.- The Endothelium as an Immune Organ: Active Player and Passive Target.