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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2017
There has recently been a steady increase in the number of patients treated in intensive care units (ICUs) and requiring resuscitation. This number has risen from 1 to 3% in patients after cardiac arrest (19) and from 7 to 13% in those with severe injuries (18). The immune system investigations, introduced more and more widely in intensive care medicine for prophylactic, therapeutic and prognostic reasons, did not, in principle, concern the cases of post-resuscitation disease after cardiac arrest. Only a few reports have been published on this subject (11).
The aims of our investigations were the analysis of selected humoral and cellular factors in patients after cardiac arrest in comparison to those with multiple injuries, evaluation of the host resisctance against infection and of prognostic values of some immunological indices.
Examinations were carried out in 50 patients, treated in an ICU of 15 beds, from 1981 to 1982, and in 20 healthy volunteers. The patients were divided into two main groups (Fig. 1): The first group consisted of 25 patients after cardiac arrest, age 47±12. The second group consisted of 25 patients after severe multiple injuries, age 42±18 y; they corresponded to an abbreviated injury scale (AIS) of 4–6 (8). 56% of the patients with cardiac arrest could not be resuscitated. In 64% of the trauma patients treatment was unsuccessful. Infection complications, influencing recovery were observed in 10 (40%) after cardiac arrest and in 12 (48%) after trauma. The cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation methods used were standard (16).