Multiple organ dysfunction: pathophysiology and therapeutic modalities

This article focuses on the physiologic systemic inflammatory immune response system that occurs normally to any event resulting in cellular injury. A review of the mediators of the inflammatory immune response system is presented along with the pathophysiologic description of the development of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and the complex interrelationships between inflammatory mediators and the host cell. Endotoxin is reviewed as a suspicious precursor in the development of the multiorgan cascade and the response of key mediators in the complement system, tumor necrosis factor, interleukin 1, and oxygen radicals. A review of the literature is presented in an effort to describe new therapeutic modalities specifically developed in an effort to alter mediator-induced inflammatory immune responses at the cellular level.