Articles related to INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Dive into this CME program to grasp the latest C. difficile guidelines and implement treatment strategies effectively. This interactive CME program focuses on Clostridioides difficile, or C. difficile. As you know, this bacterium causes severe GI disturbances. Alarmingly, it impacts half a million Americans annually and burdens the healthcare system. Who is this for? Infectious disease physicians, gastroenterologists, hospitalists, intensivists, and all HCPs managing patients with C. difficile infection (CDI) will benefit greatly. Initially, the program offers a comprehensive review of CDI. It presents the epidemiology and pinpoints key risk factors. Moreover, it explains the underlying pathophysiology and outlines clinical features. Significantly, it emphasizes the disease’s burden and unveils diagnostic tools, including NAAT, GDH assay, and toxin tests. Following this, the program shifts to treatment strategies for CDI. It details procedures for various severity levels – mild, severe, fulminant, and recurrent. Concurrently, it underlines the common challenges in therapy decision-making. Importantly, it stresses the necessity of adhering to CDI guidelines and presents preventative measures. In the concluding section, participants receive practical patient cases. This allows the application of newfound knowledge directly. Afterward, it wraps up with a summary and a best practice recap. Upon completion, participants will grasp the burden […]

In a recent single-center prospective cohort study, the effect of unsuccessful treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) on mortality rates in patients with severe pneumonia was evaluated. The study involved 585 mechanically ventilated patients with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, including 190 with severe COVID-19, all of whom underwent at least one bronchoalveolar lavage. A novel machine learning approach, CarpeDiem, was employed to group similar ICU patient-days into clinical states based on electronic health record data. Findings indicated that the lengthy ICU stays experienced by COVID-19 patients were largely due to prolonged periods of respiratory failure. The study discovered that although VAP wasn’t a contributing factor to mortality rates overall, patients with a single episode of unsuccessfully treated VAP demonstrated a significantly higher mortality rate (76.4%) compared to those with successfully treated VAP (17.6%). Furthermore, the CarpeDiem model highlighted that unresolved VAP was linked with transitions to clinical states associated with increased mortality. The study underscores that unsuccessful treatment of VAP is correlated with higher mortality and that patients with COVID-19 are at an elevated risk of VAP due to prolonged respiratory failure.

This article discusses some key infectious disease information that was released in 2022 but is unrelated to COVID-19. The literature was reviewed for sound new information relevant to internal medicine experts and subspecialists whose practice does not focus on infectious diseases. The publications mentioned are about diverse species in various patient populations.

Based on cases reported to the CDC, this study reports an acceleration in case detection, with a dramatic increase in 2021. From 2019 to 2021, 17 states identified their first case of C auris; however, resistance to echinocandins increased threefold in 2021 compared to the previous two years. And because screening is not conducted uniformly across the United States, the true burden of C auris cases is likely higher than reported.

In a follow-up to a previous article on HCN, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recently updated their website to report that 68 patients across 16 states have been identified with a rare and drug-resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa called VIM-GES-CRPA (Verona integron-mediated metallo-β-lactamase). This strain is particularly concerning as it is difficult to treat with standard antibiotics. As a precaution, the CDC and FDA are recommending that clinicians and patients avoid using EzriCare or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears products until further guidance is issued. Optometrists are advised to stay informed about the situation and to follow the CDC and FDA’s recommendations to ensure the safety of their patients.

In this randomized trial, standard treatment of rifampin and isoniazid for 24 weeks plus pyrazinamide and ethambutol for the initial 8 weeks was compared with an initial treatment of bedaquiline–linezolid for 8 weeks, extended treatment for persistent clinical disease, monitoring after treatment, and retreatment for relapse. The shorter approach was determined to be non-inferior.