Nosocomial Infections in the Intensive Care Unit Associated with Invasive Medical Devices

Modern day health care has become synonymous with cutting-edge, high-tech medicine, which includes a large and growing number of invasive medical devices, especially in intensive care units. The most widely used of these devices--intravascular catheters of many types and urinary catheters--account for more than one half of all institutionally acquired infections. Growing knowledge of the pathogenesis and epidemiology of these infections has given birth to novel and more effective control measures, the most promising of which are technologically based.