OBJECTIVES Legionella species are facultative intracellular bacteria. Evaluation of the activity of antibiotics against intracellular L. pneumophila is more predictive of their in vivo efficacy than MICs as determined in axenic medium. However, current methodologies are based on cfu count determination, and are tedious because of the slow growth of Legionella spp. We investigated antibiotic sus...

The in vitro activities of modithromycin against Gram-positive and -negative respiratory pathogens, including macrolide-resistant cocci with different resistance mechanisms, were compared with those of other macrolide and ketolide agents. MICs were determined by the broth microdilution method. All 595 test strains used in this study were isolated from Japanese medical facilities. The erm (ribos...

Legionella pneumophila is a ubiquitous environmental bacterium that thrives in fresh water habitats, either as planktonic form or as part of biofilms. The bacteria also grow intracellularly in free-living protozoa as well as in mammalian alveolar macrophages, thus triggering a potentially fatal pneumonia called "Legionnaires' disease." To establish its intracellular niche termed the "Legionella...

The etiologic diagnosis of infective endocarditis is easily made in the presence of continuous bacteremia with gram-positive cocci. However, the blood culture may contain a bacterium rarely associated with endocarditis, such as Lactobacillus spp., Klebsiella spp., or nontoxigenic Corynebacterium, Salmonella, Gemella, Campylobacter, Aeromonas, Yersinia, Nocardia, Pasteurella, Listeria, or Erysip...

The introduction of the fluoroquinolones (FQs) in the 1980s provided clinicians with a class of broad-spectrum agents applicable to a range of gram-negative infections including urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, bone and joint infections, and infections of the skin and soft tissue (reviewed in references 10 and 43...

The contamination of industrial cooling towers has been identified as one cause of legionellosis, but the real risk has been underestimated. Two different disinfection treatments were tested on Legionella colonization in an industrial Cooling Tower System (CTS). Environmental monitoring of Legionella, P. aeruginosa, and a heterotrophic plate count (HPC) at 36 °C was performed from June to Octob...