Hospital-Based Infections

Former movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A hospital is no place to be sick," and he was right. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that two million patients acquire infections in hospitals each year, and estimates that 90,000 of them die. There are several reasons why hospitals are such prime real estate for microbes. For one thing, many patients are vulnerable because of diseases or treatments that weaken their immune systems. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, transplant patients on immunosuppression drugs, and burn patients are all susceptible to microbes in the environment. Invasive devices—catheters, central lines, ventilators—provide ports of entry for microbes, and in sick patients, common, every day bacteria lurking on skin and other surfaces can have serious consequences.

Even scarier, hospitals are breeding grounds for particularly fearsome infections: life threatening microbes like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which causes pneumonia, and...