Oropharyngeal cleansing with 0.2% chlorhexidine for prevention of nosocomial pneumonia in critically ill patients: an open-label randomized trial with 0.01% potassium permanganate as control.

Background: Oral cleansing with chlorhexidine decreases the incidence of nosocomial pneumonia in patients after cardiac surgery. However, evidence of its benefit in ICU patients is conflicting.

Methods: Patients admitted to the ICU of an Indian tertiary care teaching hospital were randomized to twice-daily oropharyngeal cleansing with 0.

Tropical infections in the ICU.

Certain arthropod-borne infections are common in tropical regions because of favorable climatic conditions. Water-borne infections like leptospirosis are common due to contamination of water especially during the monsoon floods. Infections like malaria, leptospirosis, dengue fever and typhus sometimes cause life threatening organ dysfunction and have several overlapping features.

New onset fever in the intensive care unit.

Fever is defined as a core body temperature of >38.3 degrees C or 101 degrees F. About 50% of fevers in the ICU are due to infectious causes.