Management of urinary tract infections

Community-acquired urinary tract infections account for millions of physician visits per year. When urinary tract infections develop in hospitalized patients, they not only increase the duration of hospitalization (and thus its cost) but also have a serious and sometimes devastating impact on the incidence of morbidity and mortality. Treatment depends on the clinical setting, the causative organism, the site of infection, and the patients' host defenses. Diagnosis and subsequent appropriate classification provide important information on which to base therapeutic decisions. Simple first infections, particularly in women, generally respond to treatment with a simple antibiotic drug. Complicated or recurrent infections, in contrast, require other therapeutic strategies.