Treatment
Treatment primarily consists of the following.
- Volume resuscitation
- Early antibiotic administration
- Early goal directed therapy
- Rapid source identification and control.
- Support of major organ dysfunction.
Among the choices for vasopressors, norepinephrine is superior to dopamine in septic shock. Both however are still listed as first line in guidelines.
Antimediator agents may be of some limited use in severe clinical situations however are controversial:
- Low dose steroids (hydrocortisone) for 5 – 7 days led to improved outcomes.
- Recombinant activated protein C (drotrecogin alpha) in a 2011 Cochrane review was found not to decrease mortality and thus was not recommended for use. Other reviews however comment that it may be effective in those with very severe disease. The first and only activated protein C drug, drotrecogin alfa (Xigris), was voluntarily withdrawn in October of 2011 after it failed to show a benefit in patients with septic shock, including the more severe disease subgroups.
Read more about this topic: Septic Shock
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)