Targeting Hypoxia Signaling for Perioperative Organ Injury

Targeting purinergic signaling for perioperative organ protection.

1001 May 2013 A D VA N C E M E N T S in the field of anesthesia have led to significant improvements in our monitoring capabilities, safer anesthetic drugs, and improved pain control. Despite this remarkable progress, acute organ injury remains one of the leading causes for morbidity and mortality in surgical patients. Patients who require a major surgical intervention—such as cardiothoracic, v...

Perioperative organ injury.

Despite the fact that a surgical procedure may have been performed for the appropriate indication and in a technically perfect manner, patients are threatened by perioperative organ injury. For example, stroke, myocardial infarction, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury, or acute gut injury are among the most common causes for morbidity and mortality in surgical patients. In...

Hypoxia signaling during acute lung injury.

Acute lung injury (ALI) is an inflammatory lung disease that manifests itself in patients as acute respiratory distress syndrome and thereby contributes significantly to the morbidity and mortality of patients experiencing critical illness. Even though it may seem counterintuitive, as the lungs are typically well-oxygenated organs, hypoxia signaling pathways have recently been implicated in the...

Hypoxia-inducible factors and the prevention of acute organ injury

Targeting tumor necrosis factor-α in hypoxia and synaptic signaling

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α is a proinflammatory cytokine, which is synthesised and released in the brain by astrocytes, microglia and neurons in response to numerous internal and external stimuli. It is involved in many physiological and pathophysiological processes such as gene transcription, cell proliferation, apoptosis, synaptic signalling and neuroprotection. The complex actions of TNF-...