Background
- The presence of bacteria in the blood
- May be primary (associated with intravascular devices or catheters) or secondary (from some focus of infection)
- May be community-acquired (onset within 48 hours of admission) or nosocomial (onset after 48 hours from admission)
- Pseudobacteremia refers to blood culture contamination
Management
- See Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, separately
- Treat empirically, narrow when possible
- Duration is as usual for underlying source of bacteremia, except Staph. aureus
- Usually not more than 7 days
