Infectious Disease Alert articles from March 2002

Infectious Disease Alert archives from March 2002

Third-generation cephalosporin resistance in Enterobacter species: health and economic outcomes. (Abstract & Commentary).
March 1, 2002... Synopsis; The emergence of resistance to third-generation cephalosporins by Enterobacter spp. is a common phenomenon in infected patients treated with these agents and is associated with adverse outcomes. Source: Cosgrove SE, et al. Arch...

Defining the susceptibility of Streptococcus pneumoniae to [beta]-lactam antibiotics: putting the cat among the pigeons. (Abstract & Commentary).
March 1, 2002... Synopsis: The MIC breakpoints for beta lactams against S pneumoniae have been revised, taking into account the different demands of therapy in meningeal and nonmeningeal infections. Source: Musher DM, et al. Arch Intern Med....

Voriconazole. (Clinical Trials).
March 1, 2002... VORICONAZOLE WAS RECENTLY RECOMMENDED FOR FDA approval for use in the treatment of invasive aspergiliosis. This approval was largely based on the pooled analysis of 2 multicenter clinical trials, one performed in Europe and one in the United...

Meningococcal disease in pilgrims. (Disease Update).(Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia)
March 1, 2002... Synopsis: Since the outbreak of Neisseria meningitides infections that occurred in Hajj pilgrims in 1987, Saudi Arabia has required pilgrims to be vaccinated with the bivalent meningococcal A/C vaccine. In recent years, outbreaks of...

A new flu peptide with a purpose? (Updates).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Source: Chen W, et al. Nat Med. 2001;7:1306-1312. A NOVEL PEPTIDE FOUND IN CERtain influenza viruses, which may be derived from strains of avian influenza, may explain the significant morbidity associated with certain outbreaks of...

D4T and Neuromuscular weakness. (Updates).(stavudine side effects)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Source: Stevens MR. Drug Warning, BMS Virology, February 2002. THE LONG-TERM ADMINISTRATION OF nucleoside analogue therapy, especially the agents zidovudine (AZT), didanosine (ddI), and stavudine (d4T), has been linked to the development of...

Congenital malaria--revisited. (Updates).
March 1, 2002... Source: MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2001;51:164-165. CONGENITALLY ACQUIRED MALARIA is unusual, but vertical transmission Plasmodium malariae is almost unheard of. In September 2000, a 10-week-old infant presented with fever, anemia, and...

Aspiration pneumonia and the elderly. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Examination of Medicare discharge data for elderly patients from 1991 through 1998 found that annual hospitalizations for aspiration pneumonia almost doubled, increasing by 93.5% (Baine WB, et al. Am J Public Health. 2001;91:1121-1123).

Does sputum induction improve the quality of sputum specimens for routine bacteriology? Answer: not if they have a productive cough. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... One hundred twenty hospitalized patients with productive cough and a diagnosis of lower respiratory tract infection were randomized to provide a sputum specimen either spontaneously or after induction by untrained nurses with hypertonic saline....

Plasma D dimer, pneumonia, and pulmonary embolism. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Plasma D dimer levels were elevated in patients with community-acquired pneumonia, although not to levels associated with high probability of pulmonary embolism. Nonetheless, it is concluded that measurement of D dimer levels are "useless in...

Unsustained benefit of macrolide therapy in patients with asthma and past chlamydia pneumoniae infection. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this study, 232 patients with asthma and serological evidence of C pneumoniae infection (IgG [greater than or equal to] 1:64 and/or IgA [greater than or equal to] 16) were randomized to receive either roxithromycin (150 mg qd) or placebo...

Fluoroquinolones and Legionella. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In vitro susceptibility testing of 140 Legionella spp. isolates using BYE alpha broth found that trovafloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, and ciprofloxacin had MIC90s ranging from 0.008 [micro]g/mL to 0.06 [micro]g/mL, while those of...

Pneumococcal vaccination. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... A meta-analysis of 14 randomized trials involving 48,837 subjects found that pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination is associated with a reduction in the incidence of definite and presumptive pneumococcal pneumonia of, respectively, 71% and...

Zanamivir and response to influenza vaccination. (Respiratory Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Zanamivir administration to healthy adults did not interfere with the antibody response to the H3N2 influenza A and the influenza B component of a trivalent vaccine, while the placebo group developed higher antibody titers to H1N1. Cox and...

Ophthalomoplegia and Campylobacter. (Gastrointestinal Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... An association between Campylobacter jejuni infection and the development of Guillian-Barre and Miller-Fisher syndromes has been described. Kuroki and associates report 3 patients with idiopathic cranial polyneuropathy with predominant ocular...

Helicobacter pylori infection is associated with a decreased incidence of erosive reflux esophagitis, while its association with gastric cancer is confirmed. (Gastrointestinal Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... H pylori infection may prevent reflux esophagitis by inducing hypoacidity. This appears to be especially true with regard to strains that have the cytotoxin associated gene (cagA). CagA+ strains have previously been associated with a reduced...

Predictors of recurrent endocarditis after valve replacement surgery. (Endocarditis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... A retrospective review in Naples found that endocarditis recurred in 58 of 271 (22.5%) patients who had undergone replacement of a cardiac valve that had been or was infected. Variables associated with recurrence were surgery for prosthetic...

Coagulase-negative staphylococci and native valve endocarditis. (Endocarditis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Seven cases with histologically proven native valve endocarditis were seen at one institution over 10 years; all required valve replacement. While 4 patients had had central venous catheters and one had recently undergone surgery, 2 had no...

Nosocomial Bloodstream Infections (BSI) in patients with implantable Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD). (Endocarditis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this study, 49% of 214 patients had BSI with an incidence of 7.9 per 1000 LVAD-days and 38% of the infections involved the device. Coagulase-negative staphylococci, S aureus, and Candida spp. were the most commonly identified pathogens...

Rapidity of CSF sterilization after a first parenteral dose of antibiotic. (Central Nervous System Infection).(cerebrospinal fluid)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The rapidity with which empiric antibiotic therapy may render CSF culture-negative was analyzed in 128 children with bacterial meningitis--30% of whom had their first LP after the initiation of parenteral antibiotics. Another 43% had LPs both...

Pyogenic ventriculitis. (Central Nervous System Infection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The presence of ventricular debris, usually irregular in distribution and size, was present on CT and/or MRI of the brain in 16 of 17 (94%) of patients with pyogenic ventriculitis. Periventricular hyperintense signal and ependymal enhancement...

Cranial subdural empyema: craniotomy is better than a burr hole. (Central Nervous System Infection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Stepwise discriminant analysis of a retrospective cohort of patients with cranial subdural empyema found that craniotomy, rather than more limited surgical procedures, such as burr hole placement, found a significantly improved outcome when the...

Parvovirus B19 and encephalitis. (Central Nervous System Infection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In what the authors indicate is a first, a previously healthy woman with clinical and serological evidence of parvovirus B 19 infection developed encephalitis (Skaff PT, Labiner DM. Neurology. 2001;57:1336-1337).

S aureus of nose and skin in recurrent skin infections. (Skin and Soft Tissue Infection).(Staphylococcus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Pairs of S aureus isolates obtained from the infection site and from the nares of 12 patients with chronic and recurrent skin infections were identical, both phenotypically (hemolytic activity, antibiotic resistance pattern, enterotoxin...

Breast abscess management--needle aspiration. (Skin and Soft Tissue Infection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Thirty patients with 33 breast abscesses were treated with orally administered antibiotics and, instead of incision and drainage (I & D), by needle aspiration without ultrasound guidance. While 18 patients required only a single aspiration, 9...

Imaging of acute deep neck infections. (Skin and Soft Tissue Infection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Forty-seven patients with proven neck infections underwent both CT and MRI with contrast. MRI was significantly better than CT in lesion conspicuity, determination of the number of anatomic spaces involved and extension, and determination of...

Havrix vs. VAQTQ. (Viral Hepatitis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Volunteers were randomized to receive 2 doses of inactivated HAV vaccine: Havrix-Havrix, Havrix-VAQTA, VAQTA-Havrix, or VAQTA-VAQTA. All 4 regimens were immunogenic, but VAQTA-VAQTA yielded significantly higher antibody concentrations than...

Delayed booster dose of HAV vaccine works. (Viral Hepatitis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Healthy adults were given their 2nd dose of VAQTA 6, 12, or 18 months after the initial dose with comparable results in each case (Homick R, et al. Vaccine. 2001;19:4727-4731).

HAV vaccination in liver transplant recipients--not so hot. (Viral Hepatitis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Although HAy vaccination appeared safe in liver transplant recipients, only approximately one fourth of patients seroconverted (Arslan M, et al. Transplantation. 2001;72:272-276).

HCV infection with normal LFTs. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C virus, liver function test)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Only 94 of 135 (69%) of 135 consecutive HCV antibody positive patients with persistently normal ALT had detectable HCV RNA in serum. Serum ALT was lower and liver histology was less severe in patients without detectable serum HCV-RNA. None of...

Hepatic HCV RNA. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... There was no correlation between the amount of hepatic HCV KNA in pretreatment liver biopsy samples and the severity of liver disease. Higher levels were found in patients infected with HCV genotype 1 and lower levels were seen in patients who...

HCV and risk of cirrhosis. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... A systematic literature review led to the conclusion that, for persons who acquire HCV infection in early adulthood, fewer than 10% are estimated to develop cirrhosis within 20 years. It was also concluded that previous higher estimates of risk...

Interferon alpha induction followed by combined therapy for infection with HCV genotype 1. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In a randomized trial examining higher dose interferon [alpha] for the first 14 weeks of therapy, and a combination treatment with ribavirin, no benefit was found for the participants as a whole. However, among patients infected with HCV...

Retinopathy during interferon [alpha] therapy. (Viral Hepatitis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Eight of 19 prospectively observed patients with chronic HCV infection receiving interferon [alpha] therapy developed transient asymptomatic retinopathy (Jain K, et al. Br J Ophthalmol. 2001;85:1171-1173).

Amantadine for HCV infection? (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Two multicenter randomized trials failed to find any sustained benefit from the addition of amantadine to interferon [alpha] in the treatment of chronic HCV infection (Murray-Lyon L, et al. J Hepatol. 2001;35:512-516; Tabone M, et al. J...

IL-12 for HBV/HCV infection? (Viral Hepatitis).(interleukin, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In 2 open-label multicenter trials, patients with chronic HCV infection (n = 60) and chronic HBV infection (n = 46) received recombinant human interleukin-12 (rHuIL-12) with minimal antiviral effect (Zeuzem S, Cerreno V. Antiviral Res....

Occult HBV infection. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis B virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Examination of 2565 Chinese patients, including patients with chronic hepatitis, cryptogenic cirrhosis, chronic renal failure on hemodialysis, and blood donors, found 51 (2.0%) with occult HBV infection (HbsAgnegative, HBV DNA-positive)....

Combination therapy for HBV infection. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis B virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this study, 153 patients with chronic HBV infection were radomized to receive lamivudine with or without interferon [alpha]2b for 52 weeks with an additional 48 weeks follow-up. Sustained combination therapy was associated with improved...

HBV, interferon, and ALT flares. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis B virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... A retrospective analysis of 121 patients and 42 untreated controls found that those who experienced an "ALT flare" during interferon alpha therapy were significantly more likely than those without a flare to have undetectable serum HBV DNA, as...

Triple infection: HCV/HBV/HDV. (Viral Hepatitis).(hepatitis C, B, and D virus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Concurrent hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection suppresses hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication in dually infected individuals, sometimes to the extent that HBV surface antigen may become undetectable despite active disease. A study of patients...

Acute non-A-E hepatitis. (Viral Hepatitis).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this trial, 45 (85%) of 53 adult patients admitted to a Taiwan hospital with acute non-A-E hepatitis bad severe disease (albumin 15 mg/dL, or prothrombin time prolongation > 3 seconds) with 3% having fulminant hepatitis and 7% having...

BCG and PPD boosting. (Mycobacterial Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Repeat tuberculin skin testing at 1 week in BCG-vaccinated hospital employees caused a booster effect that was maximal (mean, [+ or -] 7.8 mm induration) at 48 hours and then waned (Singh D, et al. Am J Resp Crit Care Med. 2001;164:962-964).

Diagnosis of TB by direct application of gen-probe. (Mycobacterial Infections).(tuberculosis)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Six hundred sixty-three respiratory and 238 nonrespiratory specimens from 464 patients, 56 of whom had pulmonary and 19 extrapulmonary tuberculosis were examined directly using the upgraded Amplified Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Test kt (AMTD;...

Tuberculous pleural effusion. (Mycobacterial Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Measurement of the concentration of adenosine deaminase levels in pleural effusions has been touted as a means of diagnosis of a tuberculous etiology. In this study of 106 pleural fluid samples with a predominance of lymphocytes, but of...

Cavitary bronchiolitis obliterans mimicking tuberculosis ("TB or not TB"). (Mycobacterial Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Two cases are described (Heller I, et al. Chest. 2001;120:674-678).

Sea urchin granuloma and Mycobacterium marinum. (Mycobacterial Infections).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Sea urchin granuloma is a chronic granulomatous reaction, histologically resembling sarcoid, occurring after injury by sea urchin spines, generally thought to be an allergic-type foreign body reaction. A group of Spanish investigators detected...

Antibiotic therapy--some people just can't make up their minds. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In this study, 427 antibiotic regimens were administered to 119 patients with suspected serious infections during the first 72 hours after admission to a university affiliated municipal teaching hospital. Multiple antibiotic changes were made...

Macrolide therapy and resistance in oral flora. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Azithromycin therapy in children with respiratory tract infections was associated with a significantly greater number (85%) harboring resistant oral aerobic bacterial flora persisting 6 weeks after therapy than was seen with erythromycin,...

Fluoroquinolone pharmacodynamics and S pneumoniae. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).(Streptococcus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Serum concentration-time profiles were simulated for qd administration of levofloxacin 500 mg & 750 mg, gatifloxacin 500 mg, moxifloxacin 500 mg, and femifloxacin 320 mg. Using the free (nonprotein bound) serum concentrations and the MICs of...

Selection of oxacillin resistant S aureus by fluoroquinolones. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).(Staphylococcus)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In vitro studies found that fluoroquinolones, especially ciprofloxacin (moxifloxacin, gatifloxacin, and levofloxacin were also studied) select out mec(A)-positive clones of S aureus from among a heteroresistant population (Venezia RA, et al. J...

Flushing fluoroquinolones. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).
March 1, 2002... A Swiss study of urban wastewater effluents collected at treatment plants detected ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin in concentrations of 249 ng/L to 405 ng/mL in primary wastewater effluent and 45 to 102 ng/L in tertiary effluents (Golet EM, et...

Fluoroquinolones and tendon rupture. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).
March 1, 2002... Although a population study found a 28% increase in nontraumatic tendon ruptures between 1991 and 1996, only 0.5% to 7% of the increase could be attributed to increased fluoroquinolone use (van der linden PD, et al. Pharm World Sci....

Colistin + Rifampin for resistant Acinetobacter. (Antibiotic Therapy and Antibiotic Resistance).
March 1, 2002... Of 39 isolates of multidrug resistant Acinetobacter baumanii, 100% were inhibited by colistin (polymyxin E), synergy with rifampin was observed with some isolates (Giamarellos-Bourboulis EJ, et al. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2001;40:1 17-120)....

IL-2 and common variable immunodeficiency. (The Immunocompromised Host (NonAIDS)).
March 1, 2002... While common variable immunodeficiency is characterized by the presence of hypogammaglobulinemia and the lack of antibody response after antigen exposure, a variety of T cell defects, including reduced IL-2 production, have also been described...

PCR quantitation of EBV genome. (The Immunocompromised Host (NonAIDS)).
March 1, 2002... Semiquantitative PCR analysis found that EBV genome copy numbers per [10.sup.5] PBMC ranged from 1000 to 40,000 in patients with infectious mononucleosis while it was

BK and BMT. (The Immunocompromised Host (NonAIDS)).
March 1, 2002... BK viruria is quantitatively related to the occurrence of hemorrhagic cystitis after bone marrow transplantation (Leung AYH, et al. Blood. 2001;98:1971-1978).

Occult antiretroviral resistance in treatment-naive patients. (HIV/AIDS).
March 1, 2002... While neither direct sequencing of HIV DNA from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) nor HIV RNA from plasma isolates demonstrated the presence of drug resistance-associated mutations in the reverse transcriptase or protease genes, such...

RT, protease mutations, and viral replicative fitness. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Analysis of drug-resistant virus from 11 patients found that reduced replicative fitness was associated with the RT mutation M184I/V (11.6% decrease) and the PR mutations D30N (12.4% decrease) and M46I/L (21% decrease) (Devereux HL, et al. J...

HIV Protease Inhibitors--direct immunological effects. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Some recipients of HIV protease inhibitor therapy have persisting immunologic benefit despite virological failure. One reason for this discordant response may be a loss of viral fitness in the face of continued exposure protease inhibitor (PI)...

PI concentration in semen. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Analysis of 45 paired serum and semen samples from 23 patients receiving antiretroviral therapy found that, while seminal plasma concentration of ritonavir and saquinavir were below their respective IC95s against wild type HIV-1, that of...

HIV protease inhibitors unstick Candida. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... HIV protease inhibitors, whose retroviral target is an aspartyl protease, have been reported to inhibit production of secreted aspartic proteases (saps), which are important virulence factors of Candida albicans, at least in part as a result of...

Indinavir and bilirabin conjugation. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Indinavir causes unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia by competitively inhibiting bilirubin UDP glucuronosyl-transferase activity, thus inhibiting bilirubin conjugation. The increase in bilirubin is greater in subjects with Gilbert's syndrome--in...

Gynecomastia and HAART. (HIV/AIDS).(Highly active antiretroviral therapy)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The incidence of gynecomastia in HI V-infected patients receiving HAART was 0.8 per 100 patient years; the prevalence among those who had received therapy from 2 years or more was 2.8%. Four patients with this condition were successfully...

Indinavir and Nephrolithiasis. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Among 781 indinavir recipients with a median exposure to indinavir of 53 weeks, 7.3% developed renal complications; this represented an incidence of 6.7 per 100 person-years of indinavir exposure. Multivariate analysis found that treatment...

Adefovir nephrotoxicity and renal tubular mitochondria. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Adefovir, a nucleotide analog with activity against both HBV and HIV, was associated with significant nephrotoxicity in HIV infected patients and is being superseded by a similar drug, tenofovir. A study of renal biopsy material from a single...

DHEA in HIV infection. (HIV/AIDS).(Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 32 HIV-infected patients (mean CD4 count = 33 cells/[mm.sup.3]), administration of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEA-S) was associated with a significant improvement in the...

Reversible ALS-like disorder in HIV infection. (HIV/AIDS).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Six HIV-infected patients (mean CD4 count = 86/[mm.sup.3]) developed distal motor weakness mimicking monomelic amyotrophy that rapidly progressed regionally or that developed a symmetric distribution involving more than one region. EMG was...

DEET in pregnancy. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(Diethyltoluamide)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The safety of DEET use in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy was assessed in the context of a randomized trial involving 897 women. A median total dose of 214 g of DEET was applied with no evidence of adverse effects. Although DEET...

Chloroquine-resistant Plasmodium vivax in Colombia. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... P vivax resistant to chloroquine are an emerging cause of infection in Asia and Oceania, with only rare case reports from other regions. This study reports that 3 of 27 (11%) patients with P vivax infection acquired in Colombia failed to...

QBC and Borreliosis. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(quantitative buffy coat)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Relapsing fever, both the louse- and tick-borne varieties, are diagnosed by the relatively insensitive method of visual examination of Giemsa-stained blood smears. This study found that the use of fluorescence microscopy and acridine...

Strongyloidiasis on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... One hundred fifty-two patients with strongyloidiasis were admitted to a single hospital in Valencia over an 8-year period. Sanchez and colleagues point out that this infestation is endemic on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, an area frequently...

Liposomal amphotericin B for Kala Azar. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Nintey-one patients with Indian visceral leishmaniasis in India were randomized to receive 5 mg/kg liposomal amphotericin B to be given either as a single dose or as once daily infusions of 1 mg/kg with cure rates of, respectively, 92% and 93%...

Topical cidofovir for recalcitrant orf. (Geographic and Travel Medicine).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... A renal transplant recipient receiving immunosuppressive therapy developed orf after contact with a freshly slaughtered sheep. The lesion progressed to massive size, failing to resolve despite a number of interventions. Complete and apparently...

Measles virus in asymptomatic individuals. (Miscellaneous).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Measles virus genome was detected by PCR in asymptomatic infants previously exposed to wild measles virus and vaccine strain genome was detected in PBMCs of 10 (71.4%) of 14 infants sampled within 2 months of vaccination. Wild type measles...

Immunologic correlates of protection from Anthrax. (Miscellaneous).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... In rabbits who received Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed, subsequent antibody levels to "Protective Antigen" at both 6 and 10 weeks were highly significant predictors of survival after an aerosol challenge with a lethal dose of Bacillus anthracis...

Reduced mortality in childhood meningococcal disease. (Miscellaneous).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... The overall mortality of 123 children admitted to the pediatric ICU at the Royal Liverpool Childrens Hospital between 1995 and 1998 was only 8.9% which may be compared with a predicted mortality of 24.9% and also lower than previously published...

Doxycycline therapy in rheumatoid arthritis? (Miscellaneous).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Patients with erosive RA were randomized to receive IV doxycycline, po azitbromycin, or placebo; no benefit was observed (St. Clair EW, et al. Arthritis Rheum. 2001;44:1043-1047).

Conference summaries: ICAAC 2001, IDSA 2001, and ASTMH. (Conference Coverage).(Infectious Disease Socitty of America)(Inter-Science Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy)(American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene)
March 15, 2002... Editor's Note: The following summaries represent a selection of papers from those presented at the meetings listed below. It is important to recognize that many of these summaries are extracted only from the published abstract, and it is...

Meningococcus in the laboratory. (Updates).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2002... Source: MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2002;51:141-144. ACQUISITION OF MENINGOCOCCUS IS an occupational hazard for laboratory workers, especially microbiogists who are directly manipulating laboratory isolates. Fortunately, this risk...

The power of prayer. (Updates).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2002... Source: Leibovici L. BMJ. 2001;323:1450-1451. THE POWER OF PRAYER-EVEN THE act of praying for persons unknown, called remote intercessory prayer--has been reported to be beneficial in critically ill patients. Leibovici cleverly tried a...

Is communion too communal? (Updates).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2002... Source: Sacramento Bee, January 19, 2002:E1. (http://www.sacebee.com/conent/lifestyle) WHILE PRAYER MAY HAVE A BENEFIcia1 effect on those with serious Illness; this article addressed long-standing but poorly substantiated concerns that...