Antibiotics AND end of life

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UNLABELLED: Complications associated with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) surgery using a synthetic non-absorbable mesh are uncommon (<5%) but may be severe and may hugely diminish the quality of life of some women. In drawing up these multidisciplinary clinical practice recommendations, the French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de santé, HAS) conducted an exhaustive review of the literature concerning the diagnosis, prevention, and management of complications associated with POP surgery using a synthetic mesh...

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens pose a serious threat to the health and life of humans, necessitating the development of new antimicrobial agents. Herein, we develop and characterize a panel of nine amino acid peptides with a cation end motif. Bioactivity analysis revealed that the short peptide containing "RWWWR" as a central motif harboring mirror structure "KXR" unit displayed not only high activity against MDR planktonic bacteria but also a clearance rate of 92.33% ± 0.58% against mature biofilm...

INTRODUCTION: Comparing antibiotic prescribing between countries can provide important insights into potential needs of improving antibiotic stewardship programs. We aimed to compare outpatient antibiotic prescribing in early life between children born in Denmark and Germany. METHODS: Using the Danish nationwide healthcare registries and a German claims database (GePaRD, ~ 20% population coverage), we included children born between 2004 and 2016, and followed them regarding outpatient antibiotic prescriptions until end of enrollment or the end of 2018...

Since they are difficult and sometimes impossible to treat, infections sustained by multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, emerging especially in nosocomial environments, are an increasing global public health concern, translating into high mortality and healthcare costs. In addition to having acquired intrinsic abilities to resist available antibiotic treatments, MDR bacteria can transmit genetic material encoding for resistance to non-mutated bacteria, thus strongly decreasing the number of available effective antibiotics...

Given the long-life expectancy of the newborn, research aimed at improving sepsis diagnosis and management in this population has been recognized as cost-effective, which at early stages continues to be a tremendous challenge. Despite there is not an ideal-specific biomarker, the simultaneous detection of biomarkers with different behavior during an infection such as procalcitonin (PCT) as high specificity biomarker with one of the earliest biomarkers in sepsis as interleukin-6 (IL-6) increases diagnostic performance...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between early initiation of parenteral nutrition (PN) and body growth in preterm infants with very low birth weight (VLBW). DESIGN: Causal inference analysis with confounders preselected by causal diagram based on the NeoNutriNet cohort containing data of infants born between 2011 and 2014 from 13 hospitals from 5 continents. PATIENTS: Neonates with birth weight ≤1500 g. INTERVENTIONS: PN initiated within the first day of life (early PN) versus within day 2-5 (delayed PN)...

OBJECTIVES: To retrospectively describe the patterns of use of dalbavancin for treating infections in diabetic patients in Italian and Spanish standard clinical practice. METHODS: DALBADIA [NCT04959799] was a multicenter, observational, retrospective cohort study, conducted in Italy and Spain. The study enrolled 97 adults with type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus, treated with dalbavancin as per standard clinical practice for a Gram-positive bacterial infection or the Gram-positive component of a mixed infection...

Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is a life-threatening soft tissue infection, typically caused by preexisting conditions such as trauma, complicated intraabdominal infections, or even small wounds. However, it is very rare for NF to occur as a result of perforated colon cancer (CC). Diagnosis primarily relies on clinical findings, imaging, and laboratory tests. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial for patient survival. In this study, we present a case of an 82-year-old female a known case of CC diagnosed 1 month ago...

BACKGROUND: A well-recognized class effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) is immune-related adverse events (IrAEs) ranging from low grade toxicities to life-threatening end organ damage requiring permanent discontinuation of ICI. Deaths are reported in < 5% of patients treated with ICI. There are, however, no reliable markers to predict the onset and severity of IrAEs. We tested the association between neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) at baseline with development of clinically significant IrAEs (grade ≥ 2) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients treated with ICI...

BACKGROUND Idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome (I-HES) is a rare disease diagnosed as absolute eosinophil count >1500 cells/µl and end-organ involvement attributable to tissue eosinophilia with no secondary cause of underlying eosinophilia. The mean age of presentation for I-HES is 44 years. The skin, lungs, and gastrointestinal (GI) system are most common sites of presenting manifestations, including fatigue, cough, dyspnea, myalgias, angioedema, rash, fever, nausea, and diarrhea. Although cardiac and neurologic symptoms are less common at presentation, they can be life-threatening...

INTRODUCTION: Double-j (DJ) ureteral stents are used for multiple purposes in Urology. Even though they temporize the subsequent treatment of lithiasis, they may cause different symptoms that impact quality of life. PURPOSE: in this randomized trial we assessed whether the diameter of ureteral stents has an impact on catheter-associated symptoms, and their impact on quality of life. METHODS: A total of 194 consecutive patients undergoing DJ insertion between December 2018 and December 2022 were prospectively enrolled and divided into three categories: 4...

PURPOSE: We report the case of a 10-month-old with nasolacrimal duct obstruction (NLDO) associated with osteochondromyxoma (OMX), a very rare bone tumor. OBSERVATIONS: A 10-month-old boy presented with a 6-month history of right eye epiphora not responding to digital massage and topical steroid-antibiotics eye drops. The ophthalmic exam showed right medial canthal swelling. During the ophthalmic exam an abnormal snoring sound was noted. The mother also reported that patient experienced frequent upper respiratory tract infections...

BACKGROUND: Ailments such as diarrhoea and antibiotic-associated gut symptoms are generally self-managed using probiotics. Real-world data on reasons behind self-medication with over-the-counter (OTC) products and patient-reported outcomes can be investigated strategically by the pharmacists. OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the use of Bacillus clausii (Enterogermina® ) at the Italian community pharmacies among self-medicating patients, their treatment habits and perceived benefits...

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a significant causative agent of community-acquired pneumonia, causing acute inflammation in the upper and lower respiratory tract as well as extrapulmonary syndromes. In particular, the elderly and infants are at greater risk of developing severe, life-threatening pneumonia caused by M. pneumoniae . Yet, the global increase in antimicrobial resistance against antibiotics for the treatment of M. pneumoniae infection highlights the urgent need to explore novel drug targets. To this end, bioinformatics approaches, such as subtractive genomics, can be employed to identify specific metabolic pathways and essential proteins unique to the pathogen that could be potential targets for new drugs...

Calcific uremic arteriolopathy, or calciphylaxis, is a highly morbid, life-threatening syndrome of microvascular calcification leading to progressive skin necrosis. It affects 1-4% of the population with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and is rarely seen in other conditions. The one-year mortality rate is 80% for patients with ulcerations. There is no evidence-based treatment, and the response to therapy is poor; thus, it creates a serious therapeutic challenge for clinicians. Our aim is to discuss a diagnostic approach and management of calciphylaxis and to raise awareness about this condition among the medical community...

Dalbavancin represents a promising treatment for cardiovascular prosthetic infections due to its prolonged half-life, bactericidal activity, large spectrum of activity, and excellent biofilm penetration. However, the use of dalbavancin in this setting is limited, and only a few cases have performed therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) analysis to optimize dosage in suppressive treatments longer than 4 weeks. Our retrospective case series reports the use of dalbavancin in a small cohort of patients with cardiovascular prosthetic infections (cardiac implantable electronic device infections (CEDIs), prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE), prosthetic vascular graft infections (PVGIs)) treated with dalbavancin as sequential therapy...

Chronic Otitis Media is a global health problem causing significant morbidity of life. Various medical and surgical treatment modalities are being used for the treatment of Chronic Otitis Media. Surgical treatment is the definitive option which includes different surgical procedures, all of which have been designed to attain the same goals of eradicating disease and achieve a safe and dry ear with closure of tympanic membrane perforations. Various graft materials are being used for the closure of tympanic membrane perforations like autografts, isografts, allografts and xenografts, each having its own advantages and limitations...

BACKGROUND: Pediatric cancer patients in the final phase of life receive antibiotics empirically. The decision to start, maintain, or stop the antibiotic administration as part of care at this stage is a dilemma. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study including cancer patients in the final phase of life, hospitalized during the last 5 to 7 days of life. We included demographic variables, diagnoses, days of hospitalization, cultures, antibiotics used, prevalent symptoms in the last week of life, and principal diagnosis at the time of death, and performed descriptive statistics and a chord diagram...

BACKGROUND: Two-stage exchange arthroplasty is considered the most common approach for the management of prosthetic joint infections. There has been plentiful evidence to support the superiority of the mobile spacers over the static ones. Unfortunately, articulating options are not available in our low-resource environment, which motivated us to come up with an affordable way to create a mobile cement spacer. After experimenting with a variety of materials and producing methods, we realized that silicone is a favorable material for mold building and established a simple process of making a handmade silicone mold...