Bacteremic and non-bacteremic febrile urinary tract infection--a review of 168 hospital-treated patients.

Patients with febrile urinary tract infections with (80 patients) or without (88 patients) positive blood cultures were reviewed. Eighty-nine percent of the infections were community acquired. The bacteremic patients were older, Escherichia coli was the most commonly found organism in both groups. The most important finding in this study was increased frequency of resistance to three common urinary tract antibiotics (ampicillin, cephalothin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole) in E. coli from patients with non-bacteremic compared with bacteremic infections. Complications occurred in 28 bacteremic and in three non-bacteremic patients. Six patients died, all with bacteremia. The significantly higher temperature at admittance among patients with gram-negative versus gram-positive bacteremic infection possibly reflects an effect by endotoxin.