Risk of Down's syndrome and amniocentesis rate.

postoperative endotoxaemia is 32%.1 Further work should be directed at identifying those who are at risk and assessing their innate immunity in different clinical situations.If antiendotoxin is then given early, rather than after sepsis is established, the results are likely to be superior to those obtained in the trials published so far.Comparisons can be made with the published trials of steroids in sepsis.For them to be beneficial it was thought necessary to administer steroids in the very early stages.They were deemed in- effective, though confirmatory studies were not performed.Although these two drugs are not comparable, by performing similar studies with antiendotoxins without fully understanding the events leading up to sepsis we run the risk of condemning this potentially useful treatment for the wrong reasons, spending millions in the process.