Where all your ID needs are met! Sort of.
Legionella is an interesting organism, it tends to be one of those things you end up looking for and never finding while in the wards but it also tends to cause occasional outbreaks of pneumonia. The most common test that is ordered for this is the urine legionella antigen. I will cover some of the
Ditte Marie Kirkegaard-Klitbo, Magda Teresa Thomsen, Marco Gelpi, Flemming Bendtsen, Susanne Dam Nielsen, Thomas Benfield, Hepatic steatosis associated with exposure to elvitegravir and raltegravir, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2021;, ciab057, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciab057 This was an observational cohort study evaluating exposure to integrase inhibitors and subsequent hepatic steatosis. As it is known, integrase inhibitors are associated with increased
What do we want? More nec fasc! When do we want it? Now! Perhaps not a lot of people really want necrotizing fasciitis (see here), though to be fair, this post is not entirely about necrotizing fasciitis. In fact, this deals more with the “super saiyan” antigens, those toxins that group A strep and some
When I say bat poop, caves, and Indiana, the answer is Histoplasmosis. In general, most people will not get disease even when inhaling any conidia, however those who have decreased cellular immunity (i.e. solid organ transplant and HIV) are at risk of pulmonary or disseminated disease. One of the difficult issues in those patients is
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing 100% oxygen at a higher atmospheric pressure (usually 2.5-3 atm) and it has recently been widely used for multiple diseases. Recall Boyle’s law: Increasing pressure decreases the volume, so pressurizing the human body causes a decrease in volume of gas-filled spaces (1). As such, it has clinical uses in arterial
If you are reading this, I am sure you are aware of C. diff. You have either thought about it in patients who are getting antibiotics and have diarrhea, groaned at the fact you have to don PPE when “ruling out” C. diff, or had a horrible experience (perhaps not personal) where things went south
Happy new year, it feels like 2021 is trying to give 2020 a run for its money. Oh boy! Anyways, some COVID stuff since we’re over 4000 deaths a week here in the states. Oussalah A, Gleye S, Clerc Urmes I, Laugel E, Callet J, Barbé F, Orlowski S, Malaplate C, Aimone-Gastin I, Caillierez BM,
Blood cultures are typically drawn in patients who present with sepsis due to concern for infection. While the trigger response to “fevers and leukocytosis” is to obtain blood cultures, the positive rate that has been quoted ranges from 4-7% (1), depending on the source. Indeed, blood culture contamination is a frequent problem that is encountered
Coagulase negative staphylococcus are generally skin commensals we tend to ignore when they pop up in one set of blood cultures as they tend to represent contamination of the blood culture bottles rather than true bacteremia. The most commonly seen is Staphylococcus epidermidis. The reason they are called “coagulase negative staphylococcus” is these organisms, compared
The group streptococcus anginosis or milleri consist of 3 types of streptococci. These include Streptococcus intermedius, Streptococcus constellatus, and streptococcus anginosus and they are usual colonizers of the oropharygneal, urogenital, and gastrointestinal tract and tend to cause pyogenic infections (i.e. abscesses, 1). While I mentioned in a previous post that I tend to think of
Dr. Germophile 