Nigel Webster

Academic Unit of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Special professional interests

Intensive Care Medicine
Research interests

The Anaesthesia and Intensive Care group (N Webster, Galley) have studied the contributory factors to the regulation of the inflammatory and immune responses in the critically ill. There are many things other than disease severity which affect outcome from critical illness, including biological variation, therapeutic interventions, surgery and anaesthesia. The way in which genetic variation in the cytokines interleukin-8 (SHERT £71k) and IL-10 (BJA/RCA/Development fund £40k) affect the inflammatory response have been investigated. Drug mediated immune responses including antibiotics and commonly used analgesic, sedative and anaesthetic agents (Bayer/ICS/Development fund £37k) have been studied. The effect of anaesthetic agents on downstream effects of endogenous nitric oxide have also been identified (RCA £135k, AAGBI £25k). In addition the group has been involved in several industry sponsored multicentre pharmaceutical intervention trials which have focused on modification of inflammatory responses (total £125k). The group has now begun to investigate physiological effects of redox status at the molecular level, as related to the inflammatory response and subsequent development of multiple organ failure in the critically ill. Studies will continue to further identify the contribution of redox status to mitochondrial dysfunction, early markers of apoptosis and ultimately outcome in the critically ill.

Any competing interests declared are displayed with individual evaluations.

Faculty Member: Anesthesiology & Pain Management > Perioperative Hemostasis & Transfusion Medicine (since 16 January 2007)

Links

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anaesthesia/

All recent recommendations

• 3.0
  How much residual plasma may cause TRALI?
  Recommended by Nigel Webster
  
• 3.0
  Lung stress and strain during mechanical ventilation for acute respiratory distress syndrome.
  Recommended by Nigel Webster
  
• 3.3
  Statin therapy within the perioperative period.
  Recommended by Irene Osborn with Stacie Deiner, Nigel Webster, André Coetzee with Andrew Levin
  
• 4.8
  Transfusion of fresh frozen plasma in critically ill surgical patients is associated with an increased risk of infection.
  Recommended by Nigel Webster, Benedikt Pannen
  
• 6.4
  Are blood transfusions associated with greater mortality rates? Results of the Sepsis Occurrence in Acutely Ill Patients study.
  Recommended by Thomas Luecke, Nigel Webster
  
• 4.8
  Improved survival after resuscitation with norepinephrine in a murine model of uncontrolled hemorrhagic shock.
  Recommended by Thomas Luecke, Nigel Webster
  
• 8.9
  Avoidance of nitrous oxide for patients undergoing major surgery: a randomized controlled trial.
  Recommended by Alan Merry, John Robert Sneyd, Mark Hamilton, Anne Lynn, Manfred Seeberger, Nigel Webster, John Laffey, Mark Nunnally
  Dissent by Marek Mirski
• 4.9
  Red blood cell transfusions and the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome among the critically ill: a cohort study.
  Recommended by Greg Martin, Jacob Sznajder, Nigel Webster
  
• 3.0
  Allogeneic blood transfusions explain increased mortality in women after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.
  Recommended by Nigel Webster
  
• 6.0
  Protein C -1641 AA is associated with decreased survival and more organ dysfunction in severe sepsis.
  Recommended by Nigel Webster