Use of Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract

Excerpt

Intensive care units are hallmarks of modern medicine providing the latest in lifesaving, high-tech medicine to critically ill patients (1, 2). More than 95% of hospitals in the United States have at least one critical care unit and tertiary care centers often have several (1). Although intensive care units constitute only 5% of hospital beds and provide care to less than 10% of hospitalized patients, 20% of all hospital infections occur there (1).

Twenty to thirty percent of patients in the intensive care unit acquire at least one major nosocomial infection, and some have multiple sites or episodes of infection