(December 1, 2009 - Insidermedicine)

More than half the patients in intensive care (ICU) units worldwide are harboring an infection, which can lengthen hospital stay and increase their risk of death, according to research published in the December 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Some of the reasons patients can pick up infections in hospitals are:

•    They are very ill and/or their immune systems are not functioning properly

•    They receive indwelling catheters, which can carry germs into the body

•    Hospital workers may forget to wash their hands between patients or procedures

Researchers from Erasme Hospital, Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium collected detailed information on approximately 14,000 patients being treated in any of 1,265 hospital ICUs located in 75 countries on May 8, 2007.

Overall, 51% of the patients were classified as infected on the study day, and 71% were receiving antibiotics. The most common site of infection was the lungs. The longer the patients were in the ICU, the more likely they were to have an infection, especially an infection with a drug-resistant germ. Infected patients had longer hospital and ICU stays and were more than twice as likely to die as patients without infections.

Today's research highlights the worldwide problem with infection control in hospital ICUs. It also demonstrates that there is a need for a more scientific approach to the use of antibiotics in ICUs, as misuse contributes to the development of drug-resistant infections.