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Severe sepsis is a complex systemic inflammatory syndrome in response to infection, characterized by organ dysfunction and hypotension. Recently, evidence has emerged that profound immunosuppression is also a key feature of severe sepsis. Although many patients can now be successfully treated through the initial phase of severe sepsis, characterized mainly by hyperinflammation and hypotension, a sizeable proportion of patients die during later stages of the disease from secondary infections related to immune dysfunction.
To explore this concept, researchers in Australia prospectively analyzed the quantitative expression of immune-response genes in 35 critically ill patients with sepsis, 9 of whom died during the course of the disease. Whole-…