[Bacteremia in a community hospital. Review of 78 cases]

We analyze retrospectively all bacteremic episodes seen between January and December, 1987 in our institution. From a total number of blood cultures performed of 897, 145 were positive (16%), and 67 of them considered as contamination (7.5%). There were 78 episodes of bacteremia in 74 patients, 38 males and 36 females. Forty-eight episodes were community-acquired and 30 were nosocomial bacteremia episodes. Aerobic bacteria were isolated in 64 cases, anaerobic bacteria in 9 cases and polymicrobial bacteremia in 5 cases. The most commonly isolated microorganism was S. epidermidis in nosocomial cases and E. coli in community-acquired cases. Predisposing conditions registered were diabetes mellitus in 16 cases (20%), cirrhosis of the liver in 3 (4%), corticosteroid therapy in 7 (9%) and surgical procedures in 19 (24%). Shock was seen in 16 cases (20%), DIC in 8 cases (10%) and ARDS in 5 (6.5%). Appropriate antibiotic treatment was used in 60 episodes (77%). Seventeen patients (22%) died. Prognostic factors identified were: nosocomial bacteremia (p less than 0.05), corticosteroid prior therapy (p less than 0.05), underlying disease UF or RF (p less than 0.0001) and the presence of shock (p less than 0.0001). Mean hospital stay was 20.1 days in bacteremic patients vs. 7.6 days in non bacteremic patients (p less than 0.00001).