Articles: sepsis.
-
The authors reviewed all documented cases of bacteremia in obstetric patients between 1975 and 1979, with emphasis on the clinical course. The incidence of bacteremia was 7.5:1000 obstetric admissions and 9.7% of those patients sampled. One hundred seventy-six bacteremic obstetric patients had the following diagnoses: endoparametritis (123), pyelonephritis (29), chorioamnionitis (14), and other (10). ⋯ The patients with chorioamnionitis had a fever index of 32.7 +/- 48.9F-hours and an average hospital stay of 4.8 +/- 2.3 days. These clinical measures are comparable with those in the general population with the same diagnoses at the authors' hospital. In this obstetric population, prompt, vigorous treatment rendered the clinical course of bacteremic patients with genital infections remarkably similar to that of nonbacteremic patients with the same kinds of infection.
-
Asymptomatic hypoglycemia was demonstrated in 15 of 30 cirrhotic patients with septicemia. Blood glucose levels were measured daily in these patients. ⋯ Hypoglycemia is a common complication of septic shock in patients with cirrhosis, and blood glucose levels should be systematically measured in cirrhotic patients with septicemia or shock. Septicemia should be considered in any cirrhosis patient with a low blood glucose level.
-
A number of 241 patients with meningococcal infection, treated between 1972 and 1978, is analysed. Some new therapeutic patterns are established based on the application of the prognosis score of Stiehm. With these patterns consisting in the use of volume expansors with anti-aggregating properties and low dosage prophylactic heparin administration, authors have considerably improved their results reported in 1972, succeeding in diminishing the global mortality to 3.73%, a figure inferior to that of all known series to date.
-
Pseudomonas paucimobilis was isolated from blood of a man after surgery for occlusive vascular disease of his lower extremities. Circumstances suggest that the infection was hospital associated and was possibly caused by an organism present in the surroundings of this particularly susceptible host. ⋯ The isolate was susceptible in vitro to carbenicillin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and was moderately susceptible to amikacin and ampicillin. This case represents the fourth report incidence of infection due to P. paucimobilis.