The Effect of Multiple Organ Failure on the Regulation of the Circulation with Special Reference to the Microcirculation

Abstract

The evolution of shock research in the latter half of this century has been one of investigating more and more complex experimental models as the mechanisms behind the less complex clinical situations become better understood. Such an understanding has usually led quite quickly to clinical application of the newly gained information. Thus, pure hemorrhagic shock models gave way to models of combined traumatic-hemorrhagic shock, and these have in turn given way to models of sepsis-endotoxin shock. It is also true that the clinical situations are never as “pure” as the experimental models, so that while trauma and sepsis can be separated in the laboratory they are often combined in the clinic. Failure to recover from these pathological conditions in a relatively rapid time frame leads to organ failure and at the end of the line is the specter multiple organ failure.