ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates infectious complications of urologic surgery from our perspective as practicing urologists. The risk of urinary tract infection (UTI) following endoscopic urologic procedures is a complex and highly controversial topic. Much of the controversy reflects the difficulties of defining and classifying UTI, and in distinguishing among the varied urologic procedures. The practice of classifying UTIs based upon the organ of origin is common in clinical practice. Urosepsis is a syndrome resulting from a complicated UTI in a patient with one or more of the following signs: tachypnea, tachycardia, hyperthermia or hypothermia, or evidence of inadequate end-organ perfusion. Urinary catheters represent an essential part of medical care that is widely employed to relieve structural or functional obstructions of the urinary tract. Micro-organism–related factors include the overall degree of wound contamination, or bacterial load, at the surgical site as well as virulence-associated traits of the particular organisms involved.
