ABSTRACT
The search for clinical or biochemical parameters that would allow prediction of the final outcome of sepsis has been long-standing and intense and resulted in an extensive list of potential prognostic indicators. Hypothermia, shock, multiple organ failure, and acute respiratory distress syndrome appear to be among the most reliable clinical indicators of increased mortality rates in septic patients. Sepsis patients have an excessive activation of the contact and coagulation systems and concomitantly depressed levels of the natural inhibitors of these systems, such as antithrombin HI and protein C. The analysis of the distribution of plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 levels permitted retrospective determination of a threshold level of plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 that had a prognostic significance. A number of studies are suggestive that biochemical parameters such as plasma concentrations of endotoxin, tumor necrosis factor, interleukin-1, and interleukin-6 might have a prognostic value.
