Endocrine and metabolic aspects of organ failure in critical illness: perspectives for prevention and therapy.

Many aspects of intensive care medicine, particularly the care of the prolonged critically ill, remain non-evidence based, even today. There is urgent need to address such issues by careful and high quality research in this area, to clarify pathophysiology of prolonged critical illness and to investigate treatment for it. The overall objective of this project will be to generate a better insight in the metabolic and endocrine nature of organ failure, generating perspectives for prevention and therapy. We will accomplish 2 investigator-initiated clinical intervention studies, complemented with various mechanism-oriented studies in experimental models of critical illness. We will focus on clinical outcome (morbidity and mortality) and on mechanisms of action with an organ-specific focus. The more in-depth mechanistical research will deal with pathophysiology of organ failure and the impact of metabolic manipulations in the critically ill.

Keywords:Critical illness, Metabolic aspects, Organ failure, Endocrine aspects

Disciplines:Laboratory medicine, Palliative care and end-of-life care, Regenerative medicine, Other basic sciences, Other health sciences, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Other translational sciences, Other medical and health sciences, Endocrinology and metabolic diseases, Anaesthesiology, Intensive care and emergency medicine