A potential diagnostic role of dual-phase 18F-FDG PET/CT scanning

it has been shown that the gastrointestinal tract of patients undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens can become leaky, thus allowing the translocation of gut microflora into the circulatory system and cause bacteraemia. With regard to the antibiotic susceptibility of the 10 LAB isolates examined against the b lactams (penicillin), the macrolides (erythromycin) and the glycopeptides (vancomycin & teicoplanin), antibiotic resistance rates were 20%, 20%, 70% and 70%, respectively. One LAB isolate was multiresistant, i.e. resistant to two classes of antibiotics from three; i.e. b lactam + glycopeptides and another LAB isolate was pan-resistant, i.e. resistant to all three classes of antibiotics. However, even with such resistance patterns, there were alternative antibiotic management strategies for each of these isolates, namely the macrolides for the former isolate and tetracycline for the latter isolate. From these reports, although the LAB have been involved in a small number of cases of bacteraemia over a recent 10 year period, these organisms are not considered frequent causal agents of bacteraemia and are considered organisms of low pathogenicity (if any). Therefore, the benefits of their use as mediators of immunological homeostasis of the gut outweigh their risk as causal agents of bacteraemia, except, as we can see from above, in patients with an immunocompromised or immunosuppressed status, which may require further investigation. The low frequency of their aetiological involvement in clinical infection allows us to move forward with relative confidence with immunocompotent populations, relating to the novel and innovative ways we can deploy such organisms to moderate host microbiomes.