Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
4311525 Surgical Clinics of North America 2009 16 Pages PDF
Abstract

The cognate signals from sterile or pathogen-induced sources converge on the same recognition or response pathways. In the surgical patient, a systemic response to infection most often occurs in the context of ongoing inflammatory stress. Such an inflammatory response is modulated initially by the magnitude of injury and by patient-specific (endogenous) factors, such as confounding illness, age, and genetic variation. Over an extended period of stress, treatmentrelated (exogenous) factors add unpredictability to host responses to subsequent challenges, such as acquired infection. The host response is discussed in the context of how existing sterile stressors may modify the response to acquired infection in surgical patients.

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