Clinical Aspects of Bacteremia in Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units

Abstract

Background: Intensive care units(ICUs) probably represent the single largest identifiable source of infection within the hospital. Although there are several studies on ICU infections in respect to their bacteriology or mortality rate for individual types of ICU, few studies have compared ICU infections between different types of ICU. The aim of this study was to identify clinical differences in bacteremia between medical ICU(MICU) and surgical ICU(SICU) patients. Methods: 256 patients with bacteremia were retrospectively evaluated. Medical records were reviewed to obtain the clinical and bacteriologic informations. Results: 1) The mean age of the patients with bacteremia of MICU() was greater than that of all MICU patients()(p, all SICU patients: )(p>0.05). ICU stay was longer(MICU patients: day, SICU patients: day) than the mean stay of all patients( day)(p