Baseline characteristics of patients enrolled, by country (N = 630).

1Values in parentheses are percentages of total with information available, unless otherwise stated. Column percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Number of patients with missing data: susceptibility to methicillin (10), gender (1), age at positive culture (10), IV drug use (24), diabetes (31), immune suppression (51), days from admission to positive blood culture (7), duration of symptoms before positive blood culture taken (124).2Defined as any intrinsic (e.g. malignancy, chronic liver or kidney failure) or extrinsic (e.g. drugs) factor which might attenuate immune response as judged by the treating physician.315 patients had date of positive blood culture before date of admission.4Excludes 11 patients without any information available on foci of infection, and 2 patients with foci of infection given (prosthetic heart valve and prosthetic joint) but not known if considered removable.5Whether or not the focus was removable was judged on a case-by-case basis by the attending physician. There was no study-wide definition.63 patients had intra-venous catheter related infection which, in the individual clinical circumstances, were not considered removable.7Information was sought on whether individual sites were infected. The proportion of patients with a given site infected was based on those with information available. Patients could have more than one site infected.