"Walk-in" bacteremia

[摘要] Obtaining blood for culture is an essential part of the diagnostic evaluation of any febrile patient. This is necessary for determining etiology when an infection focus is present and is especially important when the cause of elevated temperature is not obvious. This has been an accepted truism for evaluation of hospitalized patients for a long time, but recently several reports of children with bacteremia well enough to be evaluated in "walk-in" clinics suggest that blood cultures may also be a necessary procedure for febrile patients who are not hospitalized.1-4 In this issue of Pediatrics , McCarthy and co-workers4 report that 117 (6.5%) of 1,783 children who had blood cultures taken in a pediatric outpatient clinic were positive for bacteria.

[学科分类] 儿科学