ABSTRACT
Patients who lack normal resistance to infection because of a deficiency in any of their multifaceted host defense mechanisms are referred to as "compromised hosts." In the 1980s physicians have been confronted with a rapidly expanding population of patients who fit into the category of compromised hosts. Compromised hosts are increasing in numbers because the medical sciences are employing more aggressive surgical and medical techniques to control or cure previously hopeless diseases including congenital immunodeficiencies, malignant neoplasms, and end-stage cardiac, hepatic, or renal failure. In addition, their number is increasing because of exposure to environmental hazards such as that which occurred at Chernobyl but more dramatically because of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, previously known as HTLV-III or LAV or ARV). Clinicians have made rapid strides over the last two decades in managing the hemorrhagic and metabolic disorders that formerly were lethal for many of these patients. Now, to an ever-increasing degree, infection is the major factor that limits the quality and duration of life for many of these populations.
