Abstract
Dysregulation of the innate immune system drives lung injury and its systemic sequelae due to breakdown of vascular barrier function, harmful hyperinflammation and microcirculatory failure, which contribute to the unfavourable outcome of patients with severe pneumonia. A variety of promising therapeutic targets have been identified and numerous innovative therapeutic approaches demonstrated to improve lung injury in experimental preclinical studies. However, at present specific preventive or curative strategies for the treatment of lung failure in pneumonia in addition to antibiotics are still missing. The aim of this mini-review is to give a short overview of some, but not all, adjuvant therapeutic strategies for pneumonia and its most important complications, sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome, and briefly discuss future perspectives.
Abstract
A review of preclinical and clinical research on adjuvant therapies for pneumonia http://ow.ly/OeiN3
Footnotes
Support statement: This work was funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (CAPSyS TP2, TP4) and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB-TR84 B1, C3, C6, C7). Funding information for this article has been deposited with FundRef.
Conflict of interest: None declared.
Provenance: Submitted article, peer reviewed.
- Received April 13, 2015.
- Accepted May 26, 2015.
- Copyright ©ERS 2015.
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