The Peripheral Nervous System in Sepsis and Multiple Organ Failure

Acute polyneuropathy in critically ill patients

“…This mechanism of tissue damage to various organs in patients with severe infections could be the same occurring at the peripheral nerve level. This cellular disorder has already been demonstrated, supported by an important reduction of high energy phosphorylated components in skeletal muscle [15]. The nerve cell body is the production site for nutrients destined for the peripheral nerve axon.…”

“…The appearance of cases of acute polyneuropathy (with predominantly axonal involvement) in ICU patients with other infectious processes and ARF has previously been described [1, 2-4, 13,14]. There is no profound understanding of the process which can occur in up to 50% of patients with severe infectious processes lasting more than 2 weeks [15]. During our study patients with polyneuropathy constituted 117.2% of all patients admitted to the ICU with severe infectious processes, and 38.4% of those patients whose stay was over 20 days.…”

“…It can be difficult to make a diagnosis when dealing with critically ill patients who have an active infectious process and are undergoing mechanical ventilation. The clinical characteristics of polyneuropathy are loss of strength and hyporeflexia of the limbs and in particular, difficulty in weaning [1, 15,16].…”