Selective decontamination is a technique which combines short-term and long-term antimicrobials to prevent or treat the acquisition and subsequent carriage of microorganisms causing late colonization and infections. The antimicrobials are selective in that they leave the indigenous, mostly anaerobic flora more or less intact, whilst the effective decontamination provides a genuine breakthrough in the endogenous route of pathogenesis. The improvements in decontamination techniques presented here offer significant reduction in infection related morbidity and mortality among trauma patients.

Lacking the capacity to store oxygen, the human organism depends on having an unimpaired and continuous supply of oxygen for its survival. Life-threatening disturbances can be encountered by the clinician at any step in the oxygen cascade from ambient air to tissue metabolism. It is therefore necessary for the mechanisms of oxygen uptake, transport, distribution and diffusion into tissues as well as the unaffected cellular metabolism to be well understood and monitored. An international symposium focusing on these issues was held in Munster, FRG, May 11-12, 1990. This book contains the...