COVID, man. You miss a little, you miss a lot. Here is a backlog of several articles I have not had the time to write about. Lu L, Mok BW, Chen LL, Chan JM, Tsang OT, Lam BH, Chuang VW, Chu AW, Chan WM, Ip JD, Chan BP, Zhang R, Yip CC, Cheng VC, Chan
Category: Article Summareies
Quite a few here. A brief word on the new vancomycin dosing guidelines, dual therapy for enterococcal IE and MRSA bacteremia, and several updates on COVID-19. Anna Poston-Blahnik, Ryan Moenster, Association Between Vancomycin Area Under the Curve and Nephrotoxicity: a single center, retrospective cohort study in a veteran population, Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Volume 8,
Leptospirosis is related to the other spirochetes such as T. pallidum and B. burgdorferi. As such, they are thin-coiled bacterium that are difficult to detect via traditional staining methods, and like B. burdorferi, it is a zoonotic disease. It is prevalent anywhere there is water, and has a worldwide distribution. Despite this, the prevalence varies
Some interesting articles this time around. This is a pair of articles that came out in the recent Lancet ID issue and deals with the use of antiseptic mouthwash and its role in preventing STIs. Chow EPF, Williamson DA, Hocking JS, Law MG, Maddaford K, Bradshaw CS, McNulty A, Templeton DJ, Moore R, Murray GL,
Invasive mold infections tend to arise in patients who are profoundly immunosuppressed. Recently, those with COVID and severe influenza have been found to have a significant risk for these infections, but I will not focus on these. Instead, I will focus on those who lack that “first line of defense” i.e those who are neutropenic
George R Thompson, III, Alex Soriano, Athanasios Skoutelis, Jose A Vazquez, Patrick M Honore, Juan P Horcajada, Herbert Spapen, Matteo Bassetti, Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, Anita F Das, Rolando M Viani, Taylor Sandison, Peter G Pappas, Rezafungin versus Caspofungin in a Phase 2, Randomized, Double-Blind Study for the Treatment of Candidemia and Invasive Candidiasis- The STRIVE Trial,
The antibody of childhood is largely a response to the dominant antigen of the virus causing the first Type A influenza infection of the lifetime. As the group grows older and subsequent infections take place, antibodies to additional families of virus are acquired. But the striking feature is…the antibody-forming mechanisms have been highly conditioned by
In the past few years, there has been an increasing in the incidence of hypeviscous Klebsiella pneumoniae. This is typically caused by phenotypes associated with K1 and K2 capsule serotypes and is seen in southeast Asia and the classical pathology is that of a liver abscess (why this is I do not know). Recently, a
Blood cultures are the gold standard for evaluating patients with suspected bacteremia. They are an indispensable tool in evaluating diseases such as infective endocarditis, septic shock, meningitis, and pneumonia. By far, it is relatively simple to interpret the results (its either positive or negative) though whether it represents a clinically relevant entity or contamination is
I think I have talked quite a bit about tuberculosis these past few posts. This is because it is difficult to diagnose in certain cases, it can infect virtually any organ, and it can become deadly once it infects any other organ outside of the lungs. Namely the CNS. Tuberculous meningitis is a deadly disease,
Dr. Germophile 