Active clinical trials for "Sepsis"

Consecutive cirrhotics who present to emergency department of Institute of Liver & Biliary Sciences with documented or suspected sepsis induced hypotension will be randomized to receive either human albumin infusion over 3 hours or plasmalyte as per requirement. At admission, all patients will undergo physical examination and baseline investigations to identify site of sepsis. The aim of study is to compare the efficacy of using 20% human albumin versus plasmalyte in resuscitation of the patient that is attainment of mean arterial pressure above 65 mm of Hg at three hour after intervention and sustenance of mean arterial pressure above 65 mm of Hg at 6th hour. The randomized patient will be administered 20% albumin (0.5-1.0 gm/kg) for 3 hours, or plasmalyte at the rate of 30ml/kg. After the intervention changes in MAP (Mean Arterial Pressure), lactate level, urine output, incidence of complications, duration of ventilator, ICU (Intensive Care Unit) stay and mortality after one week will be studied.

Infections of the blood are extremely serious and require intravenous antibiotic treatment. When the infection results from antibiotic resistant bacteria, the choice of antibiotic is an extremely important decision. Some types of bacteria produce enzymes that may inactivate essential antibiotics, related to penicillin, called 'beta-lactams'. Furthermore high level production of these enzymes can occur during therapy and lead to clinical failure, even when an antibiotic appears effective by laboratory testing. However, this risk of this occurring in clinical practice has only been well described in a limited range of antibiotic classes in a type of bacteria called Enterobacter. There is currently uncertainty as to whether a commonly used, and highly effective antibiotic, called piperacillin-tazobactam is subject to the same risk of resistance developing while on treatment. Infections caused by Enterobacter (and other bacteria with similar resistance mechanisms) are often treated with an alternative drug called meropenem (a carbapenem antibiotic), which is effective but has an extremely broad-spectrum of activity. Excessive use of carbapenems is driving further resistance to this antibiotic class - which represent our 'lastline' of antibiotic defence. As such, we need studies to help us see whether alternatives to meropenem are an effective and safe choice. No study has ever directly tested whether these two antibiotics have the same effectiveness for this type of infection. The purpose of this study is to randomly assign patients with blood infection caused by Enterobacter or related bacteria to either meropenem or piperacillin/tazobactam in order to test whether these antibiotics have similar effectiveness.

Objectives: to evaluate the feasibility, the safety and the effects on physiological parameters of mild therapeutic hypothermia during septic shock. Design: a randomized, controlled, pilot physiological study. Setting: a 15-beds university-affiliated intensive care unit of a teaching Hospital. Patients: twenty ventilated and sedated adults patients with septic shock Intervention: Mild therapeutic hypothermia between 32 and 34°C during 36 consecutive hours using an external water cooling blanket.

Despite the new developments in sepsis treatment, mortality rate is still high. Discussions on steroid treatment in sepsis are going on. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of moderate dosage steroid treatment and endocrinologic changes occurring in sepsis on prognosis in patients with sepsis.

The major goal of this project is to determine whether intravenously infused ascorbic acid is safe for use as a viable therapeutic strategy in adult humans with sepsis.

This pilot study will evaluate the effectiveness in actively removing the peritoneal fluid through the use of a commercial suction device compared to passive drainage of the same peritoneal fluid drained through standard surgical drains under bulb suction only, in critically ill patients who require an "open abdomen". Both techniques being used, the commercial KCI AbThera™ device and home made "Stampede" VAC system, are currently approved for use in Canada and used in our facility. The use or non-use of the open abdomen and its relationship to intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH) and the abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS), the level of IAH must be treated and if so how should be treated - remain controversial. The ultimate treatment for IAH/ACS is to leave the abdominal fascia open after laparotomy, utilizing some form of temporary abdominal closure (TAC) techniques, resulting in an "open abdomen"(OA). The decision to accept an OA can only be made in the operating room and is typically made quite arbitrarily (there is no current standard or protocol),and the TAC used is based on the surgeon's best judgment. The study intends to randomize patients after it has been decided that a TAC is required, which will be applied in the operating room while the patient is fully anesthetized. The only intervention required is to obtain small aliquots (a teaspoonful-15ml) of blood for the evaluation of inflammatory mediators levels, as well as the same volume of intra-peritoneal fluid-that is typically discarded in patients with OA.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects on systemic hemodynamics, microcirculation and organ function of human Protein C concentrate in patients with sepsis and septic shock.

The two co-primary objectives of this study are to assess in Japanese patients with severe sepsis and/or septic shock: 1) the safety and tolerability of two different doses of intravenous AZD9773 and 2) the PK of AZD9773. The secondary objective is to make a preliminary assessment of the pharmacodynamics of two different doses of intravenous AZD9773 in Japanese patients with severe sepsis and/or septic shock.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a fish oil-based lipid emulsion, enriched with ω-3 fatty acids, reduce proinflammatory cytokines and mortality rate in critically ill patients with severe sepsis.

Severe sepsis is a disease with a high mortality. Development of shock is a most serious complication and increases the risk of death considerably. Application of low dose hydrocortisone is currently recommended only in patients after severe septic shock has been established. Hydrocortisone therapy has a hemodynamic stabilizing effect and may reverse shock, however, the preventive application has not been investigated in a larger study. The study investigates whether low dose hydrocortisone prevents the development of shock in patients with severe sepsis. It is postulated that shock prevention may also affect morbidity and mortality.