Serious infection in the intensive therapy unit: a 15-year study of bacteraemia.

A 15-year prospective study identified 468 episodes of bacteraemia in patients in the intensive therapy unit (containing 12 beds). The mortality was 60.4 per cent compared with 13.1 per cent in those without detectable bacteraemia. The pattern of microbial isolates was similar to that in bacteraemia elsewhere in the hospital except for a relative excess of pseudomonas and yeasts. The commonest isolates were staphylococci; the source of these organisms was an infected intravenous line in two-thirds of hospital-acquired episodes of bacteraemia in the unit. Antibiotic resistance patterns were largely predictable with gentamicin resistance being especially uncommon. Although bacteraemia poses a serious threat to patients in an intensive therapy unit, the treatment of such infection seldom requires new and expensive antibiotics.