New Ideas in Trauma Treatment
Many severely injured trauma patients eventually succumb to infection and multiple organ failure. It's now known that male sex hormones may play a harmful role in cell and organ dysfunction after trauma and hemorrhage, whereas female sex steroids may have protective effects. The steroid hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) could help.
"Our data [published in April's Archives of Surgery] indicate that giving DHEA after trauma and blood loss restored the depressed cardiac and liver functions usually observed in males under those conditions," says Kirby Bland, M.D., UAB surgery chairman. "Thus it appears that DHEA could be a safe and inexpensive adjunct to fluid resuscitation for restoring the depressed heart and liver functions after trauma in male victims."
Contact Hank Black, Media Relations at 205-934-8938 or [email protected].
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