Infectious complications in chronic dialysis patients.

Surprisingly little formal research has examined the issue of major bacterial infections in chronic dialysis patients. This is a surprising situation, because uremia is a classic state of immune hyporesponsiveness, and infection rates are believed to be several times higher in dialysis populations than in age-matched segments of the general population. The present paper focuses on the clinical epidemiology of major bacterial infections in dialysis patients, associations between bacterial infections and cardiovascular disease, and interventions aimed at averting these infections.