美国国家公共电台 NPR Did An IV Cocktail Of Vitamins And Drugs Save This Lumberjack From Sepsis?

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

One year ago, a well-known intensive care physician announced that he just might have come across a cure for sepsis. This deadly reaction to infection kills around a quarter of a million people in the U.S. each year. It's the leading cause of death in hospitals. Scientists are now doing a new round of studies to see if that physician's treatment really does all he says it does. Meantime, some doctors have gone ahead and started using it on patients. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE¹: This story begins up in the Cascade² Mountains. Last summer, 51-year-old Kristopher Kelly was doing what he loved to do, cutting timber.

KRISTOPHER KELLY: I was cutting for a logging outfit³ up on these rock cliffs, and I fell about a 150-foot fir tree into these maple⁴ trees. They had a bunch of dead tops. We call them widow makers⁵.

HARRIS: And when the top of the fir tree crashed into those maples⁶, he says, the butt⁷ of the tree bounced back toward him.

KELLY: And I was against a rock cliff. I didn't have nowhere to go, and I got crushed.

HARRIS: He says the tree smashed his pelvis and broke all his ribs⁸, 22 bone breaks in all.

KELLY: I heard the bones crunch⁹ when it got me. It was pretty crazy. I'd yell for a minute, and then I'd pass out. And I guess my ribs were ripping my lungs is the reason I was only, you know, in and out of consciousness.

HARRIS: It took a couple of hours before other men working in the woods found him. Kelly says he's amazed he even lived that long. But they managed to get him off the mountain and send him by medevac helicopter to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. And that, of course, was just the beginning of his medical journey.

KELLY: They had a bird cage, is what they call it. It's a metal apparatus¹⁰ that hold your pelvis together. And they put in - I've got a big piece of ready rod titanium keeping the hips¹¹ together, a couple, four or five little titanium plates and about a little over a dozen, they look like sheet metal screws, keeping the bones all together.

HARRIS: One of the big risks from injuries like this is infection that can start on wounds on the skin, from inside the lungs or from internal injuries. Those infections can quickly turn to septic shock, and that often leads to death. David Carlbom was one of many doctors who treated Kelly. And, sure enough...

DAVID CARLBOM: The day I met him, he developed a very high fever along with shock.

HARRIS: Carlbom recognized the signs of sepsis. He's among dozens of physicians nationwide who have been experimenting with a new treatment for sepsis. It involves intravenous vitamin C, thiamine, steroids and antibiotics¹². Carlbom thought Kelly would be a good candidate. Kelly was by then in a medically induced coma¹³.

CARLBOM: I discussed it with his son, and his son was very amenable¹⁴. We talked about the fact that it's a new therapy, that there really wasn't very strong evidence but I felt there was not a ton of risk and that this could be beneficial.

HARRIS: How quickly did he respond?

CARLBOM: Usually patients are very sick for a few days before responding to antibiotics, and, him, it took about a day. His fever had cleared, and he was off the medicines to support his blood pressure and looked remarkably¹⁵ better.

HARRIS: Carlbom has used this cocktail¹⁶ in 26 patients to date, sometimes getting really rapid responses, other times, to no avail. And he's well aware that these are simply anecdotes¹⁷, making it hard to know whether this combination is really effective.

CARLBOM: Could it just be that the antibiotics kill the bacteria really well - maybe. But I also think it's possible that this impacted his care and changed his course.

HARRIS: Other doctors at Harborview are not so enthusiastic. Dr. Terri Hough, the clinical director at the hospital's intensive care unit, remembers the breathless first reports about this treatment.

TERRI HOUGH: It seemed like, great, look, someone thinks that they have a new miracle cure again.

HARRIS: There's a long history in this field of medicine where something appears to work great in one hospital but simply doesn't pan out in larger-scale studies. Hough read the original paper from Dr. Paul Marik in Norfolk, Va., and remained skeptical¹⁸.

HOUGH: To me, this isn't enough evidence to change my practice.

HARRIS: Someone making an extraordinary claim needs to have extraordinary evidence to back that up.

HOUGH: And I would certainly argue that what we've seen so far is not the highest level of evidence.

HARRIS: That said, she is eager to hear about the results from a number of carefully designed studies that are underway or soon to start. And in the meantime, Kristopher Kelly is still getting surgeries to mend his injuries and to, as he puts it, reconnect his plumbing¹⁹.

KELLY: In our industry, when you get - usually when something like this happens, you don't get a chance to be flown out or anything. It's just, you know, that's the end of that. But I'm lucky. Richard Harris, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 cascade   

n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下

参考例句：

• She watched the magnificent waterfall cascade down the mountainside.她看着壮观的瀑布从山坡上倾泻而下。
• Her hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of curls.她的卷发像瀑布一样垂在肩上。

3 outfit   

n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装

参考例句：

• Jenney bought a new outfit for her daughter's wedding.珍妮为参加女儿的婚礼买了一套新装。
• His father bought a ski outfit for him on his birthday.他父亲在他生日那天给他买了一套滑雪用具。

4 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

5 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 maples   

槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木

参考例句：

• There are many maples in the park. 公园里有好多枫树。
• The wind of the autumn colour the maples carmine . 秋风给枫林涂抹胭红。

7 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

8 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

9 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

10 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

11 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 antibiotics   

n.（用作复数）抗生素；（用作单数）抗生物质的研究；抗生素，抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
• The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。

13 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

14 amenable   

adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的

参考例句：

• His scientific discoveries are amenable to the laws of physics.他在科学上的发现经得起物理定律的检验。
• He is amenable to counsel.他这人听劝。

15 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

16 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

17 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

19 plumbing   

n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究

参考例句：

• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche. 她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。
• They're going to have to put in new plumbing. 他们将需要安装新的水管。 来自《简明英汉词典》