Clostridium difficile colitis can be cured by having patients swallow capsules brimming with other people’s concentrated stool. Inexpensive, effective, and readily available. This could be an enormous opportunity for primary care (if the FDA approves it).
This is an opportunity for primary care to help avert a public health catastrophe. Physicians need to take ownership over this issue and demand more time for URI patients-E&M criteria do not capture what is lost when these visits are viewed simply as “Level 2 Office Visit, CPT 99212.”
6 sexually transmitted infections-6 decisions. Test your skills.
Most parents of boys aged 9 to 18 years do not know that an HPV vaccine is available for their sons. One major factor is a lack of information. This is where you play a vital role.
“STD organisms are all part of an ecological pool that simply share one thing in common: sex," says the author of a new study. Testing for all important STD pathogens is the only way to detect all agents that might be involved in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Details here.
When patients develop diarrhea in the hospital within 48 hours after admission, it is most likely antibiotic-associated diarrhea, including CDAD.
Trimethylamine-N-oxide, TMAO, is a by-product of the metabolic breakdown of certain foods; elevated levels have been correlated with coronary atherosclerosis.
Some of the signs of infection are pathognomonic, but not many, so careful patient evaluation often is needed. This week's photo quiz offers a variety of presentations to test your diagnostic acumen.
Both VRE and vancomycin-sensitive enterococci are considered normal flora in the human intestine.
The FDA today advised physicians prescribing rituximab to screen and monitor all patients taking the drug for evidence of hepatitis B infection.
Escherichia coli resistance to quinolone antibiotics increased 5-fold between 2000 and 2010.
These wounds occurred when this 77-year-old woman fell when chasing her dog. Such wounds-a combination of ecchymoses and erosion caused by blunt and sheering forces on fragile skin-are common in the elderly, even after relatively mild trauma. Simple interventions will promote healing.
A 15-year prospective study shows that although cryoglobulinemic syndrome has no influence on overall survival of hepatitis C patients, it does influence the risk for other comorbidities.
Imipenem/cilastatin may be used in patients who have mild allergy to penicillin.
A large, red, tender plaque developed after a cat bite in a woman with Crohn disease. What now?
IDWeek 2013™ is an annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
Influenza infection may contribute to increases in cardiovascular hospitalizations and elevated rates of acute myocardial infarction (MI).
HIV occupational exposure leads to an estimated 1000 HIV infections among healthcare workers every year worldwide.
Spider bite? Virus? Inflammatory disease? Or, something else?
Lumbar puncture in cases of suspected meningitis should be performed before CT scan.
Rhabdomyolysis is linked to infection in up to 31% of cases. However, only 19 cases of rhabdomyolysis related to E coli infection have been reported.
Rashes, like children, come in all shapes and sizes, and they have a variety of causes, ranging from infection to allergic reaction. This week’s photo quiz tests your knowledge of skin conditions in younger patients.
Coinfection with HIV and HCV presents a problem: many of the drugs used routinely to treat HIV have adverse interactions with the newer, and older, treatments for HCV.
In patients with diabetes who do not have foot ulcers, cellulitis is most often caused by Streptococcus and only occasionally by Staphylococcus species.
Respiratory symptoms are a major reason why outpatients seek medical care, and primary care physicians who treat children frequently see pneumonia. This week’s photo essay tests your knowledge of respiratory problems in kids.
