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Biomedical subjects

George Machiedo

Publications and source records attributed to George Machiedo.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Defining the research agenda for surgical infection: a consensus of experts using the Delphi approach.

BACKGROUND: A substantial proportion of operative procedures are complicated by infections, either remote from or related to the surgical site. These infections account for substantive morbidity and health care costs. With limited research funds available to study interventions designed to either prevent or reduce the morbidity associated with infections in surgical patients, we developed a research agenda to develop priorities to aid in study design and to focus both human and capital resources more effectively. METHODS: A Delphi survey approach was used. Consensus was developed among experts in the field of surgical infection and the membership of the Surgical Infection Society. RESULTS: Thirty-six experts generated a total of 62 questions that were submitted for two rounds of consensus ranking. A total of 31 questions were ranked in the final round and are available at www.sisna.org. The most highly ranked question was "Does strict glycemic control compared with standard care reduce the risk of surgical site infection in patients undergoing abdominal surgery?" Most of the questions had little available data, suggesting these are both important and necessary areas for further research. CONCLUSIONS: This research agenda, developed by a consensus of experts, provides direction and focus to the development of interventional trials geared toward reducing the morbidity associated with infections in surgical patients.

Biomedical Research↗

Pancreatic duct ligation reduces lung injury following trauma and hemorrhagic shock.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether pancreatic digestive enzymes released into the ischemic gut during an episode of T/HS are involved in the generation of distant organ injury. This hypothesis was tested by examining the effect of PDL on T/HS-induced intestinal injury, lung injury, and RBC deformability. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: The effect of pancreatic duct ligation (PDL) on distant organ injury following trauma/hemorrhagic shock (T/HS) was examined. PDL before T/HS decreases lung and red blood cell (RBC) injury and exerts a limited protective effect on the gut. Pancreatic proteases in the ischemic gut appear to be involved in gut-induced lung and RBC injury. Based on recent work, it appears that proinflammatory and/or toxic factors, which are generated by the ischemic intestine, play an important role in the pathogenesis of multiple organ failure. The process by which these toxic factors are generated remains unknown. Previous experimental work has clearly documented that intraluminal inhibition of pancreatic proteases decreases the degree of T/HS-induced lung injury and neutrophil activation. One possible explanation for this observation is that the toxic factors present in intestinal lymph are byproducts of interactions between pancreatic proteases and the ischemic gut. METHODS: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to a laparotomy (trauma) and 90 minutes of sham (T/SS) or T/HS with or without PDL. At 3 and 24 hours following resuscitation, animals were killed and samples of gut, lung, and blood were collected for analysis. Lung permeability, pulmonary myeloperoxidase levels, and bronchoalveolar fluid protein content were used to quantitate lung injury. Intestinal injury was determined by histologic analysis of terminal ileum (% villi injured). To assess RBC injury, RBC deformability was measured, as the RBC elongation index (RBC-EI), using a LORCA device. RESULTS: At 3 and 24 hours following resuscitation, PDL prevented shock-induced increases in lung permeability to both Evans blue dye and protein in addition to preventing an increase in pulmonary myeloperoxidase levels. T/HS-induced impairments in RBC deformability were significantly reduced at both time points in the PDL + T/HS group, but deformability did not return to T/SS levels. PDL did reduce the magnitude of ileal injury at 3 hours after T/HS, but the protective effect was lost at 24 hours after T/HS. CONCLUSIONS: PDL prior to T/HS decreases lung injury and improves RBC deformability but exerts a limited protective effect on the gut. Thus, the presence of pancreatic digestive enzymes in the ischemic gut appears to be involved in gut-induced lung and RBC injury.

Animals↗