Potential bacteremia in pediatric practice
R. Hoekelman, E. B. Lewin, M. B. Shapira and S. A. Sutherland
The potential consequences of bacteremia are considerable in all infants
but particularly in those from 3 to 24 months of age with temperatures of
38.3 degrees C or more. Physicians have been advised to scrutinize these
patients carefully with a variety of diagnostic tests and to treat their
conditions vigorously if bacteremia is seriously considered or proved. We
undertook to determine how often primary care pediatric practitioners
encounter such patients "at risk" for bacteremia. Among the practices of
nine pediatricians in Monroe County, New York, involving 220 practice days
throughout 1977 and 4,151 patient visits, we found 145 instances of
potential bacteremia. Depending, then, on the season of the year,
practitioners may face this diagnostic and management dilemma as often as
once each day. Therefore, laboratory means for determining those infants at
highest risk for bacteremia or for rapidly diagnosing bacteremia will need
to be readily available to practitioners.
