top of page

Recent Posts

Archive

Tags

Lit review February #1

Disclaimer: this compilation of synopses have been collected from multiple sources, including Mark Crislip's Puscast, Journal Watch Infectious Diseases, Medscape Infectious Diseases, CDC MMWR, AMA Morning Rounds, ProMED Mail, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and more. I chose these articles based on their relevance to clinical microbiology and would be of interest to my fellows, and some other pieces that I found amusing to read. All credit goes to these original contributors. I'm just a messenger :).

 

(Source of photo of this cute rat above: Witt Pest Management)

Outbreak of Seoul Virus Among Rats and Rat Owners — United States and Canada, 2017

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6704a5.htm?s_cid=mm6704a5_e

  • Dec 2016: report of patient in Wisconsin hospitalized with fever, leukopenia, elevated transaminases, and proteinuria

  • 4 weeks later another family member developed same symptoms

  • Patient owned and operated an in-home rattery, or rat-breeding facility, with approximately 100 Norway rats, primarily bred as pets.

  • Surveillance of Seoul virus Ab in people with similar contact in USA and Canada: 13% positive and 12.5% of those individuals had been reported sick but no death

  • What is Seoul virus?

  • Old World hantavirus in the Bunyaviridae family

  • Natural reservoir is Norway rat, which does not get sick but can transmit to humans through infectious saliva, urine, droppings, or aerosolization from contaminated bedding

  • Asymtomatic to mild flu-like to hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS – associated with ARF and death), not known to spread from person to person

Adenovirus Type 4 Respiratory Infections among Civilian Adults, Northeastern United States, 2011–2015

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/24/2/17-1407_article

  • Human adenovirus type 4 (HAdV-4) causes acute URI, ocular diseases, very commonly isolated in military training camps

  • There is a live oral vaccine available but exclusively licensed for use in the military, used until 1996 then started seeing cases again so brought back in 2011 and it worked

  • Characterization of infections in civilians and most were of genome types 4a1 and 4a2, which were the most common in the military before vaccine was reinstated, so it should also benefit civilians

Pneumonia with Respiratory Failure — How Often Are Viruses Involved?

http://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(17)33236-1/fulltext

  • Prospective cohort study in 3654 patients with pneumonia requiring MV both community and hospital-onset

  • Virus as sole pathogen in 21.7%, rhinovirus/enterovirus, influenza A, RSV most common

  • Identifying pathogens (clinical and lab) would offer opportunity to discontinue antibiotics in patients with pneumonia requiring MV

Prehospital antibiotics in the ambulance for sepsis: a multicentre, open label, randomised trial

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29196046

  • Compared effects of early administration of antibiotics in ambulance (IV CRO) with usual care (just fluids and oxygen) in 2698 patients

  • Giving antibiotics in the ambulance did not lead to improved survival, regardless of illness severity

FDA OKs First Vancomycin Oral Solution for C diff Diarrhea

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/891977

  • Vancomycin hydrochloride for oral solution (Firvanq, CutisPharma) for the treatment of Clostridium difficile–associated diarrhea (CDAD) and enterocolitis caused by Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA

Evaluation of Whole-Genome Sequencing for Mycobacterial Species Identification and Drug Susceptibility Testing in a Clinical Setting: a Large-Scale Prospective Assessment of Performance against Line Probe Assays and Phenotyping

http://jcm.asm.org/content/56/2/e01480-17.full

  • 176 Mycobacterium species (other than M. tuberculosis) published and available online

  • Increase in number of NTM infections and correct ID is important for treatment and public health interventions

  • Current molecular methods: sequencing ribosomal genes, rpoB, multigene sequencing, line probe assays

  • Study in England in >2000 positive AFB cultures, most were able to be ID by standard method (line probes) and WGS

  • ID: overall concordance 99.3%, sensitivity 97.6%, specificity was 99.5%

  • TB susceptibility compared to phenotypic AST or line probe: WGS data weren’t great for about 10% of individual AST results (not individual isolates) and some indeterminates due to new mutations not in database, etc but for the ones that worked it did pretty well

 

That's all for now. Bug Hunters, may the odds be ever in your favor.

bottom of page