Abstract
Bacteremia occurs in the course of both localized and systemic infections. Bacteremia can be transient, as when colonized mucosal surfaces are instrumented; intermittent, a characteristic of undrained abscess and gram-negative bacteremia; or continuous, the hallmark of an intravascular infection, particularly endocarditis and septic thrombophlebitis. There should be no hesitation to obtain blood cultures in selected outpatients, such as patients with persistent fever who have no obvious explanation for this abnormality and do not appear so ill that they require hospital admission, patients with known rheumatic heart disease or with prosthetic heart valves who appear to have a febrile, flulike illness, and patients with fever and bleeding into the skin (petechiae, ecchymoses) or fever with pustular lesions.
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Gleckman, R.A., Czachor, J.S. (1988). Selective Laboratory Studies. In: Infections in Outpatient Practice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0780-6_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0780-6_18
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