Blood transfusion represents the first and most prescribed cell-based therapy; however, clinical safety and efficacy trials are lacking. Clinical cohort studies have suggested that massive transfusion and/or transfusion of aged stored blood may contribute to multiorgan dysfunction in susceptible patients. In this issue of the JCI, Baek and colleagues report that aged stored blood hemolyzes afte...

Adult onset Still's disease is uncommon in middle-aged and elderly individuals and can rarely present with shock; shock is usually associated with disseminated intravascular coagulation, multiorgan dysfunction syndrome or acute respiratory distress syndrome. We report a post-menopausal woman with arthritis, fever, pneumonitis and hypotension which was managed as septic shock. Steroids were inad...

The association between immunoglobulin IgG4 and autoimmune pancreatitis was first shown in 2001. Since then many previously established fibrosclerotic diseases demonstrating synchronous or metachronous multiorgan involvement have been included within the ambit of IgG4-related disease. Diagnostic criteria have been proposed involving 1) serum IgG4 level elevated beyond 135 mg/dL, 2) IgG4+ to IgG...

We have assessed the role of the cell-cell adhesion molecule, E-cadherin, in the pathogenesis of multiorgan failure in 24 intensive care patients with sepsis and varying degrees of organ dysfunction, compared with 21 healthy subjects. Plasma soluble E-cadherin (sE-cadherin) was measured by enzyme immunoassay. The median concentration of sE-cadherin in normal subjects was 3.21 micrograms ml-1 co...