Infectious diseases

Abstract

Infants and children with infectious diseases account for a substantial proportion of admissions to pediatric intensive care units. Advances in supportive critical care techniques, new antimicrobial developments, and even new disease entities such as AIDS challenge the critical care practitioner to provide state-of-the-art care for these children. These issues are addressed along with the approach to the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, infections of the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and heart, surgical infections, and infections in the immune compromised host.