Clarifying the mechanism of complement activation in sepsis patients

Sepsis occurs when the body has an extreme reaction to infection and the patient's condition worsens. Most types of infection can lead to sepsis but, commonly, infections start in the lung, urinary tract, skin or gastrointestinal tract. Sepsis can lead to multiple organ failure, complications and death. There remains uncertainty surrounding the actual causes of multiple organ failure from sepsis and greater clarity is required in order to develop treatments and improve patient outcomes. Associate Professor Koichiro Sueyoshi, Emergency and Critical Care Center, Juntendo University Urayasu Hospital, Japan, is working to better understand the reasons for multiple organ failure in sepsis patients. He is collaborating with Professor Hiroshi Tanaka, Professor of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Juntendo University, and the researchers have developed a hypothesis that one of the main causes for multiple organ failure in sepsis patients is complement activation. Now, the team is working to prove this hypothesis. The researchers are working to determine whether uncontrolled complement activation occurs during biological infection and whether thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) is triggered, leading to multiple organ failure. If Sueyoshi and the team succeed in clarifying the mechanism of complement activation in the process of developing multiple organ failure and the involvement of TMA pathology this could pave the way for new treatment strategies for multiple organ failure. In addition, the work could fundamentally change existing thought surrounding infection reactions.