1 Department of Pediatrics, The New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY 10021
To the Editor.
The recent article by Patrick et al1highlights a problem of increasing clinical importance. However, their approach to the issues these patients raise is short of the usually meticulous standards we have come to associate with this group.
The differential diagnosis of persistent bacteremia is in general quite straightforward: (1) inappropriate or inadequate antibiotics, (2) a potentially drainable or removable focus of infection, or (3) endocarditis.
We and others have shown that these same categories apply in the case of coagulase-negative staphylococci.