Adjuvant Immunotherapy to Reverse Immunosuppression in Burn-Injured Patients with Antibiotic-Resistant Infections
Abstract
10 percent of combat casualties from recent military conflicts suffered burn injuries. Infection is the most common complication of burns, and more than 70 percent of burn patients suffer an infectious complication. Severe burns with associated traumatic injuries dramatically disrupt the function of the immune system resulting in immunosuppression. This immunosuppression both increases the risk of infection and also makes antibiotic treatment for infection less effective. Simply put: antibiotic therapy is inadequate to the task of treating infections in burn injured soldiers. Because of this infection is the leading cause of death for warfighters who succumb to their burns. Advancing the treatment of infections in burn patients will require identifying burn patients with severe immunosuppression and developing treatments to restore immune function. The goal of this project is to use immunophenotyping approaches to identify immunosuppressed burn-injured patients and to define the molecular pathways underlying this immunosuppression. Burn injured subjects in the USAISR Burn Center and healthy controls will be enrolled and blood samples obtained for immune function and molecular immunophenotyping studies. We are identifying the molecular pathways that are disrupted in the immunosuppressed patients. Identifying these pathways will allow clinicians to deploy existing immunomodulatory and immunoadjuvent therapies to restore immune function to immunosuppressed burn injured patients.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1223406
Entities
People
- Isaiah Turnbull
Organizations
- Washington University in St. Louis