Treatment of mice with sepsis following irradiation and trauma with antibiotics and synthetic trehalose dicorynomycolate (S-TDCM). (Reannouncement with new availability information)

Compromise of antimicrobial defenses by irradiation can result in sepsis and death. Additional trauma can further predispose patients to infection and thus increase mortality. The authors recently showed that injection of synthetic trehalose dicorynomycolate (S-TDCM) significantly augments resistance to infection and increases survival of mice compromised either by whole-body irradiation with gamma radiation or equal mixtures of fission neutron and gamma radiation. In this study, C3H/HeN mice were given a lethal dose of gamma radiation (8.0 Gy) and an open wound (15% total body surface area TBSA) 1 hr later while anesthetized. Irradiated/wounded mice became more severely leukopenic and thrombocytopenic than mice exposed to radiation alone. However, this treatment did not increase survival of the irradiated/wounded mice.