Immunoenhancement to prevent nosocomial coagulase-negative staphylococcal sepsis in very low-birth-weight infants.

Extremely low-birth-weight infants are susceptible to invasion by coagulase-negative staphylococci (CONS). This article reviews the epidemiology, immunology, and microbiology of CONS and describes recent clinical trials of immunoenhancing agents such as intravenous immunoglobulin, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, and mouse humanized chimeric anti-lipoteichoic acid antibody. Potential avenues of research to reduce the incidence of nosocomial CONS sepsis in premature neonates are presented.