Second, why were conventional cooling techniques terminated after 8 hours when the graph (Figure 1 in the report by Broessner and coworkers [1]) indicates that body temperature was effectively lowered to below 39°C (the initial goal in treatment of heat stroke)? We question the cooling technique, because aggressive conventional cooling in the intensive care unit should achieve 39°C within 1 hou...

This paper will review the involvement of disseminated intravascular coagulation-induced microvascular thrombosis in the pathogenesis of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and the interaction between disseminated intravascular coagulation and systemic inflammatory response syndrome in critically ill patients. The published literature on clinical and experimental studies are the data sources of...

Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), defined as the presence of altered organ function in an acutely ill patient such that homeostasis cannot be maintained without intervention, is a cause of high morbidity and mortality in humans and animals. Many advances have been made in understanding the pathophysiology and treatment of this syndrome in human medicine, but much still is unknown. Thi...

In the previous issue of Critical Care, Blanco and colleagues contributed to a growing body of literature on the international epidemiology of severe sepsis. Taken together, these studies confirm that the sepsis incidence is high, that the development of organ dysfunction is a major determinant of mortality and that the occurrence of organ dysfunction is influenced by chronic comorbid medical c...