Abstract
Objective
To characterize the epidemiology of polymicrobial bacteremia (PMB) among critically ill patients.
Design
Prospective clinical study.
Setting
University medical center.
Patients
All patients with positive blood cultures in a medical-surgical ICU.
Measurements
PMB represents 8.4% of all true bacteremia in our ICU. Most of these patients were post-operative but none had malignancies or significant immunodepression. Over three-quarters of the episodes were nosocomial. No significant differences in factors associated with PMB were found when they were compared with a cohort of 154 monomicrobial episodes. Enterobacteriaceae were the most common organisms. Intravascular devices (42.8%) were the most common source of PMB, followed by intra-abdominal origin (21.4%). The overall mortality was 7.1%, a lower rate than has previously been described.
Conclusions
We suggest catheter replacement in patients who develop PMB and improving techniques of catheter maintenance in order to reduce its incidence.
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Rello, J., Quintana, E., Mirelis, B. et al. Polymicrobial bacteremia in critically ill patients. Intensive Care Med 19, 22–25 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01709273
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01709273