title: [Nosocomial infection: clinical aspects].
abstract: Nosocomial infections develop within a hospital or are produced by microorganisms acquired during hospitalization. They may involve not only patients (2 to 10 percent) but also hospital personnel. They arise from complex interactions of multiple causal factors. Patients risk factors are these that reduce the patient's capacity for resisting the injurious effects of the microorganisms and impair natural host defense mechanisms: patients with malignant disorders or immunosuppressive therapy, poor nutritional status, extensive burn wounds ... The young and the elderly are generally more susceptible to infection. Other infections are preventable. Disease causation is often multifactorial. Nosocomial urinary tract infections had the highest rate, followed by lower respiratory tract infections, surgical infections and bacteremias. The emergence of other nosocomial infections, caused by bacteria (tuberculosis), virus (HIV, hepatitis B and C virus, cytomegalovirus...), Aspergillus species or Pneumocystis carinii appears to be recent in origin and is of importance to immunocompromised hosts, other patients and hospital personnel. Nosocomial infections and their social and economic impacts require for their prevention vigorous organized hospital-wide surveillance and control programs.
authors.affiliation: Service des Maladies infectieuses Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Paris.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Frottier
mesh_terms: D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence
vernacular_title: L'infection nosocomiale: aspects cliniques.