Infectious diseases (London, England)
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Severe sepsis is a major cause of mortality and morbidity globally. As the time to adequate treatment is directly linked to outcome, early recognition is of critical importance. Early, accessible markers for severe sepsis are desirable. The systemic inflammatory response in sepsis leads to changes in vital signs and biomarkers and to symptoms unrelated to the focus of infection. This study investigated whether the occurrence of any of six systemic symptoms could predict severe sepsis in a cohort of patients admitted to hospital for suspected bacterial infections. ⋯ Systemic symptoms in combination with other signs of infection should be considered warning signs of severe sepsis.
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Numerous investigations on procalcitonin (PCT) have been carried out, although few with large sample size. To deal with the complexity of sepsis, an understanding of PCT in heterogeneous clinical conditions is required. ⋯ PCT could be used in clinical algorithms to diagnose positive infections and sepsis. Different PCT levels could be related to different kinds of microbemia, different infection sites, and differing severity of sepsis.
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We performed a retrospective analysis of clinical and laboratory data over 5 years in a tertiary centre to assess clinical and microbiological characteristics of patients with Raoultella spp. infection. Raoultella spp. were deemed responsible for clinical infections in 57 patients (R. planticola, n = 32 and R. ornithinolytica, n = 25). The most prevalent diagnoses for R. planticola were cystitis (50%; n = 16) followed by bacteraemia and pneumonia (9.4%; n = 3); for R. ornithinolytica, cystitis (36%; n = 9) followed by pneumonia (24%; n = 6). ⋯ Of these, 55.6% and 37.5% had diabetes and 27.8% and 18.% were solid organ transplant recipients, respectively. All isolates were sensitive to third-generation cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides. Mortality of infections with R. planticola (n = 5; 15.6%) was higher than for R. ornithinolytica (n = 2; 8.0%), but the difference was not statistically significant.
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The incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) before and after the introduction of selective oral decontamination (SOD) only and selective digestive tract decontamination (SDD) in a general intensive care population was examined. SOD as standard of care was introduced in December 2010 and SDD, including SOD, in January 2012 for all patients with an expected length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay of at least 48 h. ⋯ The incidence of VAP per 1000 ventilator days declined significantly from 4.38 ± 1.64 before to 1.64 ± 0.43 after introduction of SOD/SDD (p = 0.007). Implementation of SOD/SDD as standard of care in ICUs may thus be effective in preventing VAP.
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In this incidence study, of 16 074 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) from 1/1/2003 to 7/31/2011, 161 cases of candidemia were identified. The incidence of sepsis (27%), severe sepsis (31%), and septic shock (40%) was remarkably high in these cases of candidemia, as was the all-cause in-hospital mortality for sepsis (30%), severe sepsis (44%), and septic shock (65%).