Nearly 50,000 US medical patients die every year of blood poisoning or pneumonia they picked up in hospital, a study published Monday shows. Hospital-acquired sepsis and pneumonia in 2006 claimed 48,000 lives, led to 2.3 million extra patient-days in hospital and cost 8.1 billion dollars, according to the study, led by researchers from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy at Wahsington-based Resources for the Future. Together, the two hospital-acquired infections – also called nosocomial infections – account for about one-third of the 1.7 million infections US patients pick up every year while in hospital, the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows. They are also responsible for nearly half of the 99,000 deaths a year from hospital-acquired infections reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study found that patients who underwent invasive surgery during their initial hospitalization were more likely to pick up a secondary infection while in hospital, and elective surgery patients were at even higher risk of nosocomial infection. Using the largest database of hospital records in the United States, which covered hospital discharges in 40 states, the researchers estimated that 290,000 patients in US […]