Septic Cariomyopathy: A Distinct Metabolic and Genetic Entity?

During the course of sepsis, myocardial dysfunction occurs in 20-30% of patients. Septic cardiomyopathy has a high mortality and the underlying molecular pathophysiology remains still largely unclear. Sepsis induced cardiac dysfunction (SICD) or septic cardiomyopathy (SC) gathered increasing denotation during the last years since mortality rates are high.

Septic shock is characterized by circulatory compromise, microcirculatory alterations and mitochondrial damage, which all reduce cellular energy production in the myocardium. As the specific underlying molecular causes of septic cardiomyopathy remain largely unclear, characteristic alterations in the organ proteome (“tissue proteomics”) and metabolome are of high interest to understand emerging dysfunction and to identify molecular details to establish new treatment approaches.

Thus, it is of outstanding importance to diagnose septic cardiomyopathy effectively being able to treat specifically this entity of a disease.

Keywords: Cardiac dysfunction, Heart, Protein alterations, Protein expression, Proteomics, Sepsis, Septic cardiomyopathy, Septic myocardial dysfunction.