Infection & chemotherapy
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Infection & chemotherapy · Sep 2013
Predictive performance of serum procalcitonin for the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis after neurosurgery.
Postoperative bacterial meningitis (PBM) is a serious potential complication after neurosurgery. Early diagnosis and introduction of antimicrobial therapy are necessary to reduce the rate of fatal outcomes from PBM. However, PBM is not easily differentiated from postoperative aseptic meningitis (PAM), which usually has favorable clinical outcomes. Serum procalcitonin (S-PCT) has been found to be a useful marker for distinguishing community-acquired bacterial from viral meningitis. We investigated the predictive performance of S-PCT for PBM in patients who underwent neurosurgery. ⋯ S-PCT showed limited performance for the diagnosis of postoperative meningitis. However, it could be a useful adjunct for the improvement of diagnostic sensitivity when used in combination with other inflammatory markers.
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Infection & chemotherapy · Jun 2013
ReviewThe Meaning of Information Technology (IT) Mobile Devices to Me, the Infectious Disease Physician.
The devolopment of mobile devices such as smartphone or tablet has revolutionized our quality and way of life. As a specialist of infectious diseases, various aspects of information technology on our professional fields were reviewed and lots of useful medical applications were also presented in this review.
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Infection & chemotherapy · Jun 2013
Blood stream infections in patients in the burn intensive care unit.
The study on bacteremia helps empirically select the proper antibiotics before the results of culture test about causative pathogen. The purpose of this study is to investigate causative pathogen in bloodstream infection, changing aspects based on elapsed time after burn, relationship with other sites and resistance of important causative pathogen against antibiotics through analysis on bacteria isolated from blood culture of patients hospitalized in burn intensive care unit (BICU). ⋯ Since the highly antibiotic resistant microorganisms were isolated from the patients hospitalized in BICU during early phase, the empirical selection of antibiotics targeting these pathogens should be considered before the results of microbiologic culture test. In addition, use of empirical antifungal agent after 1 week of injury can be considered for patients who have risk factor of fungal infection.