Vitamin C is best known for warding off colds but it may also reduce infection risk and improve survival rates in trauma patients, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found that giving trauma victims a high-dose antioxidant cocktail of vitamins C, E and selenium reduced complications such as infections and even organ failure.
Many trauma patients who survive their initial injury will die of multiple organ failure after an operation, the researchers said.
"While we are all looking for that magic bullet to cure some of the horrible things that can happen after someone is injured or has an operation, we have something at our disposal," Dr. Bryan A. Cotton, an assistant professor of surgery at Vanderbilt, said in a statement. "It might not be that magic bullet, but it is a very inexpensive and safe way to reduce complications and mortality in the sickest patients."
The cocktail consists of 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C and 1,000 international units of vitamin E administered by mouth and 200 micrograms of selenium administered intravenously.
About half of the patients in the study were given the cocktail for seven days or until they were discharged, whichever came first.
A seven-day course costs about $11 per patient.
The researchers presented their findings at the 2008 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons in New Orleans.
The antioxidants had a significant effect on abdominal wall complications such as infections at the surgery site, the researchers said.
If an abdominal wound opens up, the resulting infection must not only be treated with antibiotics, but may also require a costly abdominal reconstruction.
"This is a high mortality, high morbidity, may-never-return-to-work-again problem
in a young healthy patient," Cotton said. "Abdominal wall complications are enormous, yet we noted a reduction in some of these complications with implementation of antioxidants."
Prior to completing this study, Cotton and his colleagues had proven that the same antioxidant cocktail reduced the risk of death in seriously injured patients by 28 per cent. It also reduced the patients' length of stay in both the hospital and the intensive care unit.
The cocktail works by reducing the oxidative stress that plagues many trauma patients.
Oxidative stress occurs when an increase in oxygen molecules circulate in the body. These molecules, known as free radicals, cause damage to the body's cells.
The researchers studied more than 4,000 patients who had been admitted to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center trauma unit over a one-year period.
Compared to the patients who did not receive the cocktail, patients who did get the vitamins had fewer catheter-related and surgical-site infections and could more easily be removed from ventilators.
Cotton and his colleagues are currently prescribing the cocktail to the most seriously ill patients in the ICU. They will conduct further studies to determine if they are using the optimal dosage and for the right length of time.
