Category: bacteremia

Staphylococcus Aureus, the Inoculum Effect, Cefazolin, and Nafcillin: The Odyssey

Staphylococcus Aureus is a tough disease to treat, but luckily for MSSA we have pretty good antibiotics to treat this beast. The choice is usually between cefazolin, a first-generation cephalosporin, and Nafcillin, an anti-staphylococcal penicillin. My experience has been that cefazolin is usually the go to antibiotic for MSSA bacteremia, with nafcillin having a niche

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Therapy for Gram Negative Bacteremia – Not a Complicated Issue

Gram negative bacteremia tends to complicate a variety of infections, including urinary tract infections/pyelonephritis, and intra-abdominal infections. Further, a lot of these patients tend to have severe presentations leading to perhaps overtreatment with IV antibiotic therapy. Until recently, there had been little data to guide uncomplicated gram negative rod bacteremia but there has been a

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Invasive Pneumococcal Infection – A Clue to Immunodeficiency

Pneumococcus, or Streptococcal pneumoniae, is an encapsulated gram positive organism. SO that is not a surprise to most people reading this. Here is a diagram of the capsule: Strep pneumo joins other encapsulated organisms such as Haemophilus influenza and Nisseria meningiditis in causing havoc in certain immunodeficiency states. These include anything that affect the opsonization

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Invasive Group B Streptococcus

The rate of invasive group B streptococcal infection has been rising for the past few years. Originally described in neonates and pregnant woman, the incidence of invasive disease has risen significantly in the non-pregnant adults. Early studies (1, 2) from Atlanta in the early 90s found that in non-pregnant adults, bacteremia without a focus and

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