NCT00615225

Brain Death: Inflammatory Response, Apoptosis, and Endotoxin Tolerance

Observational Study on the Systemic Inflammatory Response During Brain Death.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: —
• Sponsor: Delafontaine Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

We hypothesized that brain death is associated with an early systemic inflammatory response, possibly combined with activation of apoptotic cell death, two events that may contribute to induce rapid organ dysfunction. In this study of brain-dead donors and controls, we assayed plasma cytokines and soluble factors, investigated plasma endotoxin levels as a triggering factor for inflammation, measured ex vivo cytokine production by blood leukocytes to determine whether immunosuppression occurred after brain death, and examined skeletal muscle biopsies to look for evidence of inflammation and increased apoptosis in peripheral tissue.

Conditions

• Brain Death

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
PROCEDURE	Muscle biopsy	Muscle biopsies were taken through the operation site from the vastus lateralis thigh muscle at the beginning of surgery

Timeline

• Start date: 2000-01-01
• Primary completion: 2007-11-01
• Completion: 2007-12-01
• First posted: 2008-02-14
• Last updated: 2008-02-14

Locations

3 sites across 2 countries: Belgium, France