Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract Reduces Pneumonia and Mortality

Table 1

Pathogenicity of microorganisms.

Site of carriage	Micro-organisms involved	Flora
Low pathogenic microorganisms; IPI = 0.01
Throat	Streptococcus viridans	Normal
	Veillonella spp.
	Peptostreptococci
Gut	Bacteroides spp.
	Clostridium spp.
	Enterococcus spp
	Escherichia Coli
Vagina	Indigenous flora
Skin	Coagulase-negative Staphylococci
Potentially pathogenic microorganisms; IPI = 0.3–0.6		Normal
“Community” PPM
Throat	Streptococcus pneumoniae
	Hemophilus. Influenzae
	Moraxella catarrhalis
	Staphylococcus aureus
	Candida spp.
Gut	Escherichia coli
	Staphylococcus aureus
	Candida spp.
“Hospital” PPM
Throat and gut	Klebsiella spp.	Abnormal
	Proteus spp.
	Morganella spp.
	Enterobacter spp.
	Citrobacter spp.
	Serratia spp.
	Pseudomonas aeruginosa
	Acinetobacter spp.
	Multiresistant Staphylococcus aureus
Highly pathogenic microorganisms; IPI = 0.9–1.0
“Epidemic” microorganisms
Throat	Neisseria meningitides	Abnormal
Gut	Salmonella spp.

See text for details.