Endocrine Abstracts

Acute critical illness has an effect on normal physiology resulting in changes in the inter-relations of the endocrine system.Evidence suggests that these changes may be due to the pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g. interleukin-6 (IL-6)), which are known to have a paradoxical effect on the hypothalamo-pituitary axis, stimulating the adrenal axis, whilst suppressing the remaining axes.Multiple myeloma (MM) patients have elevated IL-6 ...

Introduction: Proinflammatory cytokines, for example interleukin-6, have been found to stimulate the HPA axis at all levels. In animal models glucocorticoids have been shown to suppress cytokines. There may therefore be a balanced interaction during stress when both are raised. For this reason, we investigated patients undergoing routine coronary artery bypass grafting on day 3 post-operatively (CABG) to examine the mechanisms for failure of suppression of the HPA axis in resp...