Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized clinically by any combination of autonomic, cerebellar, and extrapyramidal symptoms. Autonomic symptoms are usually severe, and urinary symptoms are one of the cardinal features of MSA. Bowel dysfunction and sexual dysfunction are also common in MSA. Quality of life (QOL) in patients with MSA is severely impaired by the ...

Ceylon Medical Journal The wasp (Vespa affinis) is common and widely distributed in Sri Lanka. Wasp venom is known to contain factors that release histamine, enzymes, haemolysins, neurotoxins and vasodilators [1]. Case reports with severe multi-organ dysfunction after wasp stings are few in literature. We report two patients who developed severe multi-organ dysfunction following multiple wasp b...

INTRODUCTION Continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration, generally used in patients with acute renal failure, enables elimination of humoral mediators of systemic inflammatory response and sepsis from blood. This effect should improve treatment results in patients with multiple organ dysfunction, but evidence of improved survival is insufficient. OBJECTIVES Describe the effect of continuous veno...

Infections of the mother, the intrauterine environment, the fetus, and the neonate can cause cerebral palsy through a variety of mechanisms. Each of these processes is reviewed. The recently proposed theory of cytokine-induced white matter brain injury and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome is critically evaluated.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the alterations in circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines and cytokine production by peritoneal macrophages during the development of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. DESIGN Prospective, controlled laboratory study on zymosan-induced generalized inflammation in mice. Single intraperitoneal administration of zymosan induces, over a 12-day period, a triphasic illnes...

Abnormal colonisation, infections of gut origin and bacterial translocation are all signs of gut failure that have been hypothesised as being implicated in the pathogenesis of the multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). We have summarised published experimental and clinical studies that have tried to correlate the occurrence or prevention of these phenomena with the development of MODS. We ...

This review summarizes new insights in the pathophysiologic implications of inflammation and microvascular alterations in organ dysfunction, as well as genetic factor contribution, from clinical and experimental studies that were published in 2010 in Critical Care in the fields of multiple organ dysfunction and sepsis. New diagnostic and prognostic markers of organ dysfunction are presented. Ev...