Methylprednisolone improves lung mechanics and reduces the inflammatory response in pulmonary but not in extrapulmonary mild acute lung injury in mice.

Objective: Corticosteroids have been proposed to be effective in modulating the inflammatory response and pulmonary tissue remodeling in acute lung injury (ALI). We hypothesized that steroid treatment might act differently in models of pulmonary (p) or extrapulmonary (exp) ALI with similar mechanical compromise.

Design: Prospective, randomized, controlled experimental study.

Exogenous platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase reduces mortality in mice with systemic inflammatory response syndrome and sepsis.

Current evidence indicates that dysregulation of the host inflammatory response to infectious agents is central to the mortality of patients with sepsis and in those with systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Strategies to block inflammatory mediators, often with complicated outcomes, are currently being investigated as new adjuvant therapies for sepsis. Here, we determined if administration of recombinant platelet-activating factor (rPAF)-acetylhydrolase (rPAF-AH), an enzyme that inactivates PAF and PAF-like lipids, protects mice from inflammatory injury and death after administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or cecal ligation and puncture (CLP).