Critical care clinics
-
Critical care clinics · Apr 1988
ReviewThe febrile granulocytopenic patient in the intensive care unit.
Patients treated aggressively for potentially curable hematologic and neoplastic diseases are often admitted with profound granulocytopenia to an intensive care unit. These patients have a high risk of sustaining life-threatening infections caused by various bacterial, fungal, viral, and protozoal pathogens. Successful management of these critically ill, profoundly granulocytopenic patients by the intensive care team requires an organized, informed, and rational approach to treating their infections.
-
Septic shock may occur in otherwise normal individuals but is frequently a fatal sequel to infection in the elderly, the diabetic, or the debilitated patient. Mortality rates range from 40 to 95 per cent depending both on host factors and on the speed of initiation of appropriate therapy. ⋯ Survival is primarily dependent on the rapid delivery of the appropriate antibiotics, surgical drainage and debridement of any infected tissues or abscesses, and aggressive volume resuscitation at the very time early sepsis is diagnosed. Septic shock is a medical emergency.