Venous Interruption for Septic Thrombophlebitis

Abstract

DESPITE the remarkably favorable influence of antibacterial therapy, combined with surgical drainage when indicated, in most cases of pyogenic sepsis, septicemia remains a chief cause of death. In the Boston City Hospital population, Finland et al.¹ demonstrated that the great reduction in deaths from streptococcal and pneumococcal bacteremias brought about since 1935 by the antibacterial agents has been counterbalanced by the marked increase in fatal staphylococcal and coliform septicemias. Although the case fatality rate for proved septicemia, which was nearly 50 per cent in 1935, had fallen to 30 per cent in 1947, it had slowly risen to 35 per . . .