This study describes coagulase-negative staphylococcal (CoNS) infective endocarditis (IE) epidemiology at our institution, the antibiotic susceptibility profile, and the influence of vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) on patient outcomes. One hundred and three adults with definite IE admitted to an 850-bed tertiary care hospital in Barcelona from 1995-2008 were prospectively incl...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcus aureus endocarditis has a high mortality rate. Vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) has been shown to affect the outcome of methicillin-resistant S. aureus bacteremia, and recent data point to a similar effect on methicillin-susceptible S. aureus bacteremia. We aimed to evaluate the effect of vancomycin MIC on left-sided S. aureus infective endocarditis (I...

A soluble form of Streptococcus pneumoniae PBP2x, a molecular target of penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics, has been expressed and purified. IR difference spectra of PBP2x acylated with benzylpenicillin, cloxacillin, cephalothin and ceftriaxone have been measured. The difference spectra show two main features. The ester carbonyl vibration of the acyl-enzyme is ascribed to a small band bet...

BACKGROUND Prior studies suggested that vancomycin may be inferior to β-lactams for the empiric treatment of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) bacteremia. We assessed whether empiric therapy with β-lactams compared to vancomycin was associated with differences in clinical outcomes in patients with MSSA bacteremia. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adult inpatients wi...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to obtain a natural antibiotic from Phenol-rich compounds; for the dressing and the treatment of chronic wounds. METHODS The Phenol-rich compound sweet gel was prepared by blending four natural herbal extracts, Acacia catechu (L.F.), Momia (Shilajit), Castanea sativa, and Ephedra sinica stapf, with combination of a sweet gel medium, including honey, ma...

Seventyone blood cultures were taken from suspected cases of infective endocarditis. The positive cultures were isolated for study of their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. Gentamycin was found to be the most effective. Cloxacillin, chloramphenicol, Vibramycin, Tetracyclin, Erythromycin were next in order. The incidence of bacteria probably susceptible to high dose schedules and those demons...

Clinical evidence for failure with beta-lactam therapy has been lacking for patients with borderline oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (BORSA) infections. We describe a failure of cloxacillin for a patient with endocarditis due to BORSA. The isolate also had false-negative thermonuclease and coagulase test results.

Objectives: Phagocytosed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are susceptible to b-lactams because of an acid-induced conformational change of penicillin-binding protein (PBP) 2a within phagolysosomes. We have examined whether this mechanism applies to menD and hemB small-colony variants (SCVs) of the COL MRSA strain, using cloxacillin, meropenem, doripenem, and vancomycin as comp...

The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of Staphylococcusaureus in Umuahia was investigated in this study.A total of 113 strains of S. aureus consisting of 30 isolates from clinical specimens obtained from 10 medical Laboratories and 83 isolates from nasal swabs of University students in Umuahia, were tested against 10 antimicrobial agents using the disc agar diffusion method. Resistance to pe...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE AmpC β lactamases are one of the important causes of drug resistance in gram negative bacteria. Failure to detect these enzymes in the laboratory has contributed to therapeutic failures but there are till date no standard guideline available. This study was therefore undertaken to evaluate three phenotypic laboratory tests and the inhibitors used in two of the tests to ...