title: Brief report: nosocomial infection rates in a cancer treatment center.
abstract: This report describes the results of a prospective study of nosocomial infection in 7,714 patients hospitalized during a 24-month period at a cancer treatment center. An overall nosocomial infection rate of 9.3% was observed with site-specific infection rates of 2.6% for urinary tract, 1.9% for surgical wound, 2.2% for bacteremia and 1.9% for respiratory tract infection. Within specific patient groups, the overall nosocomial infection rates observed were: 8.2% in medical patients, 14.9% in surgical patients and 1.5% in pediatric patients. Despite the markedly elevated nosocomial infection rate in surgical patients (P less than 0.001), surgical wound infection rates were not unlike those observed in general hospitals: clean-2.4%, clean contaminated-5.8%, contaminated-13.2%, and dirty-11.8%. These observations provide evidence that institutions which provide medical care predominantly for cancer patients can expect to observe higher nosocomial infection rates than general care hospitals.
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D002173:Cancer Care Facilities; D002648:Child; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D006782:Hospitals, Special; D006801:Humans; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D018805:Sepsis / Q000453:epidemiology; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000453:epidemiology; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology