Results
A total of 76 patients hospitalized in 2018 in the Palliative Care
Service with various diagnoses, and who had clinical findings of
decubitus ulcers during hospitalization and a positive wound swab
culture that was considered clinically significant, were included in the
study. Among these patients, 40 (52.6%) were male and 36 (47.4%) were
female, with a mean age of 70.8±15.6 (18-95) years. Among the diagnoses
of the patients, Alzheimer’s disease, CVA and cancer were the most
frequently encountered. The distribution of the diagnoses of the
patients is presented in Table 1.
Among the 76 patients, 75 (65.2%) had decubitus ulcer infections at 115
different sites of the body. As expected, ulcers were generally found at
the sacrum, costa and hips. The distribution of decubitus ulcer
infections in terms of location are presented in Table 2. The rate of
bacteremia in decubitus ulcers was 13.9% (16/115) , and the agents were
found to be polymicrobial in the wound cultures of 42 (55.2%) of the
patients. The most common accompanying bacteria were acinetobacter,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa and E.coli.
Among the decubitus ulcers, 49 (42.6%), 60 (52.4%) and 6 (5.2%) were
evaluated as stage 4, 3 and 2 decubitus ulcers, respectively.
The microorganisms identified in the decubitus ulcer and blood cultures
are presented in Table 3.