Selective Hemosorption of Endotoxin in the Treatment of Abdominal Sepsis

Abstract

Sepsis remains to be one of the most urgent problems of modern medicine, which are associated with a steadily high mortality (as high as 70%). The central point of the pathogenesis of abdominal pathogenesis is the translocation of the gram-negative flora and the elevated blood concentrations of lipopolysaccharide in the bacterial cell wall (endotoxin), which induces a systemic inflammatory reaction and has direct and indirect cell damaging actions. The technologies that have recently emerged in the clinic for the selective hemosorption of endotoxin in combination with dynamic monitoring of its blood level (LAL test) open up wide prospects for the treatment of abdominal sepsis. The paper gives a clinical example of successful therapy for septic shock, by using the sorbent LPS adsorber (Alteco, Switzerland) in a patient with abdominal sepsis in the presence of blood cancer. Selective hemosorption of endotoxin could substantially reduce its blood concentration, which attenuated a systemic inflammatory reaction, stabilized hemodynamics, and improved lung microcirculation with resolution of respiratory failure. Key words: abdominal sepsis, endotoxin, selective hemosorption.