ABSTRACT
An increasing number of patients may develop bacterial and other infectious complications during the course of underlying noninfectious diseases. Prompt diagnosis and treatment of conditions are essential and sometimes lifesaving. Continuous bacteremia may be observed especially in intravascular infections, in intra-abdominal abscesses, and in the initial phase of some diseases, such as typhoid fever, brucellosis, leptospirosis, and tularemia. Infection by certain parasites may create problems of unexplained fever. Anaerobic infections may generate problems of unexplained fever and are responsible for 8 to 10% of general hospital bacteremias and 85% of suppurative brain infections. Breakthrough bacteremia is more likely to be caused by facultative or aerobic Gram-negative rods than by anaerobes. Spirochetal diseases may create problems of unexplained fever. The Spirochetal diseases are leptospirosis, relapsing fever, syphilis, and Lyme diseases. Lyme disease is caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, first recognized in Lyme, Connecticut in 1975.
