Infection of immunosuppressed patients.

I hope it is no longer old-fashioned to consider the immune system as being primarily concerned with defence against infection by micro-organisms. I intend to deal with the types of immunodeficiency listed in Table 1, except for the first two categories, and with particular emphasis on the commonest that we encounter-general immunodeficiency due to metabolic and nutritional abnormalities and druginduced depression of immune activity. We must consider the types of organism concerned, the consequence of an infection during a state of immune suppression, the few specific associations that exist between a particular state of depression and a particular organism, problems in the diagnosis of infection, its prevention, and, very briefly, treatment.