Der Anaesthesist
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Studies suggest that female mice have lower mortality rates than males after sepsis or trauma-hemorrhage. This study investigated the impact of gender and disease severity on monocyte hyporesponsiveness in severe human sepsis. ⋯ Severe sepsis leads to a substantial suppression of stimulated cytokine response. Prolonged suppression may serve as a marker of unfavourable outcome in male but not in female individuals suffering from severe sepsis. Furthermore, our data suggest that gender differences in cellular immunity described for young, sexually mature animals obviously persist in typical postmenopausal intensive care unit patients, although a direct interaction between testosterone or estradiol and LPS-stimulated cytokine response could not be demonstrated.