Tag: antibiotics
Higher Dose Antibiotic Shown Safe in TB Patients Likely More Effective in Treating Deadliest Form of TB
A Johns Hopkins Children’s Center-led study in animals suggests that high doses of a widely used antibiotic called rifampin may safely treat and reduce the duration of treatment for the deadliest form of tuberculosis that... read more
Electronic Pneumonia Decision Support Helps Reduce Mortality by 38% in Community Hospitals
Pneumonia was the leading cause of death from infectious diseases in the United States, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to be a leading cause of death. In the study, researchers at Intermountain Healthcare... read more
Responding to Crisis in Ukraine
Direct Relief is working directly with Ukraine's Ministry of Health and other partners in the region to provide requested medical aid, from oxygen concentrators to critical care medicines – while preparing to offer longer-term... read more
Procalcitonin in the ED: The evidence
Is procalcitonin of any value in the emergency department? Considering that procalcitonin testing is not available in any of my hospitals, I have never been all that interested in this question. But Swami requested a procalcitonin... read more
Cluster ICU Treatment Strategies for TBI by Hospital Treatment Preferences?
Although correlations between treatment policies within domains were found, the failure to cluster hospitals indicates that a specific treatment choice within a domain is not a proxy for other treatment choices within or... read more
Descriptors of Sepsis Using the Sepsis-3 Criteria
We successfully operationalized the Sepsis-3 criteria to an electronic health record dataset to describe the characteristics of critical care patients with sepsis. This may facilitate sepsis research using electronic health... read more
Fever is Associated with Reduced Mortality in ICU Patients with Sepsis
To evaluate the association of body temperature with mortality in septic patients admitted to the ICU from the ward. In addition, we intend to investigate whether the timing of antibiotic administration was different... read more
Novel Antibiotics Efficacy for Sepsis ICU Patients
Restricting severely ill patients access to new broad-spectrum empirical drugs is not the answer. Rather there should be a focus on identifying host response to infection to differentiate between colonization or contamination... read more
Procalcitonin-guided Antibiotic Treatment Effect on Mortality in Acute Respiratory Infections
Use of procalcitonin to guide antibiotic treatment in patients with acute respiratory infections reduces antibiotic exposure and side-effects, and improves survival. Widespread implementation of procalcitonin protocols... read more
Risk of Death in Hospitalised COVID‐19 Patients Is Not Reduced by Azithromycin Treatment
The effect of antibiotics with potential antiviral and anti‐inflammatory properties are being investigated in clinical trials as treatment for COVID‐19. We are certain that risk of death in hospitalised COVID‐19... read more
Timing of Antibiotic Therapy in the ICU
Severe or life threatening infections are common among patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Most infections in the ICU are bacterial or fungal in origin and require antimicrobial therapy for clinical resolution. Antibiotics... read more
The Clinical Utility of MRSA Nasal Screening to Rule Out MRSA Pneumonia
Nares screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) had a high specificity and NPV for ruling out MRSA pneumonia, particularly in cases of CAP/HCAP. Based on the NPV, MRSA nares screening is a valuable... read more
Use of Procalcitonin During the First Wave of COVID-19
A minority of patients presenting to hospital with COVID-19 have bacterial co-infection. Procalcitonin testing may help identify patients for whom antibiotics should be prescribed or withheld. This study describes the... read more
Validation of Sputum Gram Stain for Treatment of CAP and HCAP
The usefulness of sputum Gram stain in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is controversial. There has been no study to evaluate the diagnostic value of this method in patients with healthcare-associated pneumonia... read more
Virus-Induced Changes of the Respiratory Tract Environment Promote Secondary Infections
Secondary bacterial infections enhance the disease burden of influenza infections substantially. Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) plays a major role in the synergism between bacterial and viral pathogens, which... read more
Why COVID-19 Pneumonia is More Deadly than Typical Pneumonia
Bacteria or viruses like influenza that cause pneumonia can spread across large regions of the lung within hours. In the modern intensive care unit, these bacteria or viruses are usually controlled either by antibiotics or... read more
Unexpectedly High Frequency of Enterococcal Bloodstream Infections in COVID-19 Patients
Coronavirus disease 2019 seemed to increase the frequency of bloodstream infections (particularly Enterococcus-related bloodstream infection) after ICU admission. This may have been due to enteric involvement in patients... read more
Long-Term Sustainability and Acceptance of Antimicrobial Stewardship in Intensive Care
An antimicrobial stewardship program implemented over a decade resulted in sustained suggestion and acceptance rates. These findings support the need for a persistent presence of audit-and-feedback over time with more frequent... read more
Azithromycin in Patients Hospitalised with COVID-19
2582 hospitalised patients were randomised to standard of usual care plus azithromycin and 5182 patients received standard of usual care only. Exclusions including patients with long QTc or hypersensitivity to a macrolide... read more
It Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint – Sustainability of Stewardship in ICUs
ICUs are arguably the most important yet most challenging hospital environments for antimicrobial stewardship. The stakes are high with critically ill patients, where the burden of resistant Gram-negative pathogens is greater... read more
Evaluation and Treatment of Renal and Perinephric Abscesses
A 30-year-old woman with past medical history of type 2 diabetes presents to the emergency department with 3 days of vague abdominal/back pain, with associated subjective fever, chills, nausea and vomiting. She states she... read more
Ultrasound Probe: POCUS for Flexor Tenosynovitis
A 21 year-old female with no past medical history presented to the emergency department (ED) with ring finger pain and swelling of her right hand over the past six days. According to the patient, she initially developed a... read more
