A doctor claims to have stumbled upon a potentially effective treatment for sepsis, a deadly condition marked by the body's overwhelming and life-threatening response to severe infection
Sepsis
Patients who develop sepsis face longer treatments and higher healthcare costs. They also have a higher likelihood of suffering from complications. Those who become septic tend to suffer from low blood pressure that can lead to multiple organ failures. The condition is highly fatal killing more people in the hospital than any other disease.
Vitamin C As Cure For Sepsis
Now, a doctor from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, claims he has discovered a potential cure for the disease and the treatment's primary ingredient is Vitamin C.
Paul Marik said he already treated about 150 patients with sepsis using an infusion of vitamin C, thiamine, and low dose of steroids.
The treatment has high success rate. Of those he treated, only one died of sepsis, which is remarkable given that 300,000 of 1 million cases of sepsis in the United States per year are fatal.
Healthcare Workers Urged Not To Use Marik's Treatment
Despite the promising results of Marik's treatment, other experts warned healthcare workers not to use or replicate the treatment just yet because the results could be different when the treatment is tried in a larger study.
Emory University School of Medicine surgery professor Craig Coopersmith, a top sepsis researcher, cautioned that Marik's treatment needs to be treated as a preliminary deal that needs to be validated. He said that further tests are necessary before any conclusions can be drawn about the new treatment's efficacy.
Coopersmith's skepticism is not without good reason. Hundreds of promising results from sepsis studies have failed in follow-up research. Coopersmith said that a result may seem very exciting when it is done in a group in one hospital with one group of clinicians but it may turn out otherwise when it involves a larger group of patients in multiple centers.
"Thus far we've been unsuccessful with anything," Coopersmith said.
Ron Daniels, from UK Sepsis Trust, said that Markin's treatment has only been used in a small number of patients and it isn't clear if the vitamin C or the steroid is responsible for the results.
Daniels said that the results are almost too good to be true and these need to be tested properly in controlled trials.
"It's an unorthodox way of doing research," Daniels said.
He said that if the treatment is proven effective in further research, it could potentially pave way for future hospital therapies since the ingredients are relatively cheap and accessible.
In their study describing the treatment which was published in a study published in the journal Chest on Dec. 6, Marik and colleagues acknowledged that additional studies are needed to confirm their preliminary findings.
"Our results suggest that the early use of intravenous vitamin C, together with corticosteroids and thiamine may prove to be effective in preventing progressive organ dysfunction." Marik and colleagues wrote. "Additional studies are required to confirm these preliminary findings."
