Pneumonia

BACKGROUND: Inspiratory muscle strength is associated with pneumonia in patients after surgery or those with subacute stroke. However, inspiratory muscle strength in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has not been studied. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the predictive value of inspiratory muscle strength for pneumonia in patients with AMI. METHODS: Patients with AMI were consecutively enrolled from March 2019 to September 2019. Measurements of maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) were used to estimate inspiratory muscle strength and mostly were taken within 24 hr after culprit-vessel revascularization...

OBJECTIVES: The antimicrobial activity of tedizolid and comparators was evaluated against a large worldwide collection of Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates recovered from patients with pneumonia. METHODS: Clinical isolates were collected from patients in 96 medical centers in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and United States during 2017-2019 and tested for susceptibility by reference broth microdilution. RESULTS: The most active agents against S...

We investigate the within-host heterogeneity of 66 P. aeruginosa populations from pneumonia in 51 critically ill ventilated patients, by examining 30 colonies per bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). We observed differences in antibiotic susceptibility and quorum sensing (QS) phenotypes between the members of 14 (21.2%), and 10 (15.2%) populations, respectively. A significant association was found between QS deficiency and ceftazidime resistance. QS deficiency was associated with various lasR modifications, and observed in 25/51 (49...

BACKGROUND: The superiority of combination therapy for carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacilli (CR-GNB) remains controversial. In vitro models may predict the efficacy of antibiotic regimens against CR-GNB. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed including pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) and time-kill (TK) studies examining in vitro efficacy of antibiotic combinations against CR-GNB. Prospero registration number is CRD42019128104...

BACKGROUND: Few small studies have described hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) during COVID-19. RESEARCH QUESTION: What patient characteristics in critically ill patients with COVID-19 are associated with HAIs and how do HAIs associate with outcomes in these patients? STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Multicenter retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data including adult patients with severe COVID-19, admitted to 8 Italian hub hospitals from February 20, 2020, to May 20, 2020...

OBJECTIVE: The chest X-ray (CXR) is the most readily available and common imaging modality for the assessment of pneumonia. However, detecting pneumonia from chest radiography is a challenging task, even for experienced radiologists. An artificial intelligence (AI) model might help to diagnose pneumonia from CXR more quickly and accurately. We aim to develop an AI model for pneumonia from CXR images and to evaluate diagnostic performance with external dataset. METHODS: To train the pneumonia model, a total of 157,016 CXR images from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Korean National Tuberculosis Association (KNTA) were used (normal vs...

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association between longitudinal total pulmonary infection volume and volume ratio over time and clinical types in COVID-19 pneumonia patients. METHODS: This retrospective review included 367 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. All patients underwent CT examination at baseline and/or one or more follow-up CT. Patients were categorized into two clinical types (moderate and severe groups). The severe patients were matched to the moderate patients via propensity scores (PS)...

Hybrid endoscopy-assisted larynx-preserving esophagectomy is developed for cervical esophageal squamous cell carcinoma encroaching or extending above the upper esophageal sphincter. First, a cervical incision was surgically performed followed by cervical lymph node dissection. Second, the margin of cervical esophageal squamous cell carcinoma was endoscopically identified with iodine staining and marked endoscopically followed by semi-circumferential or circumferential endoscopic full-thickness excision around the lumen of the esophagus...

BACKGROUND: During the last decade, numerously therapeutic regimes were assessed to improve the outcome of patients with esophageal carcinoma. We analyzed the impact of therapy alterations, including the establishment of a standardized clinical pathway and the introduction of an interdisciplinary tumor conference on the outcome of patients undergoing esophagectomy because of esophageal cancer. METHODS: Included were 301 patients (204 adenocarcinoma and 97 squamous cell carcinoma) who underwent an esophagectomy between 2006 and 2015...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) represents a health problem with multidimensional impacts and heterogeneous respiratory involvement in children, probably due to the interaction between different and complex mechanisms that could explain its variable degrees of severity. Although the majority of reports reveal that children develop less severe cases, the number of patients is increasing with more morbidity. Most serious respiratory manifestations are acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pneumonia...

When a chest computed tomography (CT) scan is performed in the diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia, the possibility of lung neoplasm should be kept in mind if the ground-glass nodule (GGN) shows features that are non-specific for viral infection, such as solitary nature, relative roundness, well-defined borders, and distance from the pleura.

Background: Emerging of multidrug-resistant bacteria can compromise the effectiveness of antibiotics used to treat skin infections. Those bacteria imposed public health problems and questioning medical care in the 21st century. In this circumstance, essential oils of medicinal plants origin are supreme sources of structural and functionally divergent compounds, which inhibited the growth of common wound colonizing MRSA and ESBL producing P. aeruginosa. The aim of this study was to evaluate the combined antibacterial activity of essential oils extracted from Rumex abyssinicus, Cucumis pustulatus, and Discopodium penninervium against multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates of skin ulcers...

The emergence of AmpC ( pAmpC ) β -lactamases conferring resistance to the third-generation cephalosporins has become a major clinical concern worldwide. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of AmpC β -lactamase encoding gene among the pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative resistant bacteria screened from clinical samples of Egyptian patients enrolled into El-Qasr El-Ainy Tertiary Hospital in Cairo, Egypt. A total of 153 bacterial isolates of the species Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Enterococcus faecium were isolated from patients diagnosed with urinary tract infection (UTI), respiratory tract infection (RTI), and wound infections...

BACKGROUND In 2019, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described the criteria for the diagnosis of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI), which may be caused by contamination of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinoid (THC) e-liquids with vitamin E acetate. This report describes a case of a 20-year-old man with a history of recreational drug use that included vaping, who presented with EVALI and a coagulopathy associated with thrombotic events. CASE REPORT We present a 20-year-old patient who worked at a cannabidiol (CBD) manufacturing facility with a history of e-cigarette use and polysubstance abuse in remission who presented with respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms accompanied by 50-pound weight loss over 6 months...

Valley fever (coccidioidomycosis) is an endemic fungal pneumonia of the North and South American deserts. The causative agents of Valley fever are the dimorphic fungi Coccidioides immitis and C. posadasii , which grow as mycelia in the environment and as spherules within the lungs of vulnerable hosts. Current diagnostics for Valley fever are severely lacking due to poor sensitivity and invasiveness, contributing to a 23-day median time to diagnosis, and therefore, new diagnostic tools are needed. We are working toward the development of a breath-based diagnostic for coccidioidomycosis, and in this initial study, we characterized the volatile metabolomes (or volatilomes) of in vitro cultures of Coccidioides Using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to time of flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS), we characterized the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by six strains of each species during mycelial or spherule growth...

Background: Factors leading to the wide range of manifestations associated with Mycoplasma pneumoniae ( Mp ) infection are unclear. We investigated whether Mp genotypes are associated with specific clinical outcomes. Methods: We compared Mp loads and genotypes of children with mucocutaneous disease to those with pneumonia, family members with upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), and carriers from a prospective cohort study ( n =47; 2016-2017), and to other children with mucocutaneous disease from a case series ( n =7; 2017-2020)...

In the era of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, imported COVID-19 cases pose great challenges to many countries. Chest CT examination is considered to be complementary to nucleic acid test for COVID-19 detection and diagnosis. We report the first community infected COVID-19 patient by an imported case in Beijing, which manifested as nodular lesions on chest CT imaging at the early stage. Deep Learning (DL)-based diagnostic systems quantitatively monitored the progress of pulmonary lesions in 6 days and timely made alert for suspected pneumonia, so that prompt medical isolation was taken...

Antibiotic stewardship requires clear insight into antibiotic overuse and into which syndromes lead to prescription. We aim to estimate the proportion of antibiotic prescriptions attributable to acute lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) during the cold seasons. Using individual data from the French national health insurance, we constructed weekly time series of outpatient antibiotic (beta-lactams and macrolides) prescriptions between January 2010 and December 2017. We also constructed time series of ICD-10 discharge diagnoses from a national network of emergency departments, stratified by specific syndromes (pneumonia, bronchitis, bronchiolitis and influenza-like illness)...

OBJECTIVE: This report summarizes the clinical features and 1-month follow-up observations for pediatric patients who were hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan Women and Children's Hospital. METHODS: The 1-month follow-up data included clinical manifestations and results from serum severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) IgG and IgM tests, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2, lung computed tomography (CT) scans, and laboratory tests...

These "rules" are suggestions for clinicians who order chest computed tomography (CTs). The first three address CT scanning technique and the ordering details that we find cause the most confusion. The next three are on patient preparation, and specifically the use of sedation and anesthesia. Radiation risk is next, and we end with three, more philosophical, rules on how we can best work together as clinicians and imagers. This is not a complete or systematic review. You won't find detailed references (or any references for that matter), descriptions of the latest techniques, or lists of sample protocols...