Anergy in Critically Ill Patients

Abstract

The failure of delayed hypersensitivity skin responses to recall antigens or anergy has been widely used in order to document a possible correlation to the incidence of postoperative sepsis and mortality. Patients with anergy developed significantly more infectious complications postoperatively than the others^1,2. Additionally, the degree of surgical trauma determined the extent of the postoperative decrease of skin test responses. In contrast, Bancewicz et al.³ found that delayed hypersensitivity skin testing was not of general value as a predictive test in surgical patients, since their data demonstrated an increasing incidence of anergy with age. Furthermore, abnormal skin tests followed clinical detection of sepsis, and therefore did not contribute to management.