[Acute infectious diarrhea in adults].
Acute infectious diarrhoea are common and usually self-limited but their management is often inadequate due to over-prescriptions of stool cultures and antibiotics. From a clinical point of view, the most important point is to promptly identify presentations at risk of complications (severe dehydration, septic shock, surgical complications) such as elderly patients, co-morbidity, diabetes, renal or heart deficiency, immune deficiency...). When the epidemiological context is suggestive, physicians have to systematically consider certain clinical forms potentially at risk of severe outcome: collective food poisoning, E. coli O157:H7 bloody diarrhoea with the risk of hemolytic-uremic syndrome or antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous colitis due to Clostridium difficile. Rehydration, including Na, K and glucose, remains the corner stone of the treatment, symptomatic medications being of limited interest and antibiotics reserved to presentations at risk of complications.
Bouchaud
Olivier
O
Service des maladies infectieuses et tropicales, Hôpital Avicenne, AP-HP, 93009 Bobigny, France. olivier.bouchaud@avc.aphp.fr
D000328:Adult; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000175:diagnosis; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000628:therapy / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis