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Meeting Perspectives: Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) October, 2007

December 13, 2007

Commentary by Neal Steigbigel MD, Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases/Immunology)

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was a hot topic at this year’s IDSA meeting. The CA (community-acquired)-MRSA strains are spreading rapidly in the United States causing largely soft tissue infections, but also other infections such as serious necrotizing pneumonia. Clinicians can no longer rely on demographics in predicting which patient is at high risk for MRSA when an individual appears with a suspected staph infection. If the infection appears serious and is…

Grand Rounds: “Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pathogenesis-Studies of an Opportunist”

November 9, 2007

Welcome to our Grand Rounds Series. Each week, we plan to post a summary of the week’s Medicine Grand Rounds lecture. The summaries are reviewed and approved by the grand rounds speaker prior to posting.

Commentary by Ryan Farley MD, PGY-3

This week’s Medicine Grand Rounds guest lecturer was Dr. Barbara Kazmierczak , currently Associate Professor of Medicine and Microbial Pathogenesis at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Kazmierczak is the principal investigator for several NIH grants studying Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence…

Rifaximin: A useful drug for travelers’ diarrhea

September 28, 2007

Commentary by Sumathi Sivapalasingam MD, NYU Division of Infectious Diseases

Rifaximin is an oral semi-synthetic analog of rifampin which is essentially not absorbed (bioavailability <0.4%) making it useful for the treatment of intra-luminal intestinal infections, while having little systemic side effects. There are several advantages to using rifaximin: it does not appear to lead to bacterial resistance, a problem frequently encountered with rifampin; colonic fecal flora is minimally altered; and it has a safety profile similar to placebo. Like other rifamycins, it exerts…

Recent Legionella Outbreak in the Bronx

September 20, 2007

Commentary by Elizabeth Hackett MD, PGY-3

On July 25th, 2007, the NYC Department of Health released an advisory requesting that all New York City physicians maintain a high index of suspicion for Legionnaires’ disease in patients presenting with community acquired pneumonia. This advisory was prompted by 27 cases of Legionella pneumonia reported in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx during the fall of 2006 (zip code 10462 ). This cluster of cases represented an increase in incidence of the disease to 16.6…

Reemergence of the Great Imitator: Overview of the Diagnosis and Treatment of Syphilis

August 17, 2007

Commentary by Rosemary Adamson, PGY2, Deena Altman PGY-1 and Harold Horowitz, Professor of Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases

Syphilis is back! You know the drill: an 80-something year old man presents with dementia and you send the TSH, B12 and RPR and get a head CT, all the while expecting some microvascular disease & age-related cortical volume loss. Imagine my surprise when my VA patient had a positive RPR and then the lumbar puncture returned a positive VDRL. To be fair, he wasn’t…

The HPV vaccine: Recommended in the U.S., but required in Virginia

May 8, 2007

Commentary By: Marshall Fordyce, PGY-3

Now that the dust has settled in Texas and Virginia, let’s clarify the role of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine in our clinics. An excellent article in last week’s JAMA by its Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, and Lawrence Gostin, JD, highlights how the recent push for compulsory vaccination – a significant step beyond CDC recommendations – defied precedent and threatened public confidence in our national vaccine policy. Now, after the tussle of aggressive pharmaceutical lobbying and the…

Is the PPD obsolete?

May 1, 2007

In February of this year the New York City Department of Health released a new policy paper indicating that they will no longer use the PPD as a screening tool for tuberculosis in their clinics.They have switched to the QuantiFERON-TB Gold, (QFT-G), a blood test. This test is an ELISA, which measures interferon-gamma secretion by t-lymphocytes in response to tuberculosis specific antigens. The test requires heparinized whole blood and must be processed within 12 hours of the blood draw.

The test exposes the…

Quick Thinking Part 4-The Conclusion

April 20, 2007

Welcome to Quick Thinking. A case is presented in short sections to a faculty expert who will comment on their approach to the patient as the case unfolds. These posts will focus on determining the initial differential diagnoses and diagnostic workups of complicated patient presentations.

Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here. Part 3 can be found here.

Part 3 Case Presentation by Elizabeth Ross, PGY-3:

The patient continued to complain of headache and dizziness and given the patient’s persistent and intermittent fevers…

Don’t Pass the Olives…

April 18, 2007

This week, olives from several different companies were found to contain Clostridium Botulinum. No cases of botulism have been reported to date, but this is an opportunity to review the pertinent clinical findings.

Botulism is caused by exposure to the botulinum neurotoxin in clostridium botulinum. There are eight toxin strains identified, 4 are known to cause disease in humans. The toxin is produced only in an anaerobic environment, so bottled or canned food products are a good source of infection. Food may smell…

Does the Overuse of Macrolides Lead to Antibiotic Resistance?

March 12, 2007

Commentary By: Danise Schiliro, PGY-3

Although intuitively we always worry about creating drug resistance when using antibiotics, there is a surprising lack of well done studies that show a clear causal effect of antibiotic use on the development of subsequent drug resistance. A recent study in Lancet may however lead us to re-evaluate our use of macrolides in everyday practice.

Azithromycin and clarithromycin are two of the most commonly used macrolides for treating respiratory infections. Azithromycin has a long half-life, making it…

PB&J Hold the P: Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Peanut Butter

February 15, 2007

Commentary By: Cara Litvin PGY-3

The CDC has issued a public health advisory regarding a large outbreak of Salmonella infections in 39 states since August. As of Tuesday February 14, 288 cases had been reported to the CDC. Among the 120 patients for whom clinical information is available, 31 patients have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported. The most cases have been reported in…

What Is XDR-TB?

February 12, 2007

Commentary By: Marshall Fordyce, PGY-3

Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is as ominous as it sounds. As a second-year resident on the Chest service, you may have treated one or two patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), which is resistant to at least INH (Isoniazide) and RIF (Rifampin), the two most powerful first-line agents. However, when TB becomes designated as XDR-TB, it implies resistance to any and all Fluoroquinolones and at least one of the three injectable second-line drugs (Amikacin, Capreomycin, and Kanamycin).…

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