BACKGROUND The recent report of high numbers of Acinetobacter baumannii bloodstream infections among service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan during the period January 2002 through August 2004 has prompted an investigation into their etiology. A review of the current guidelines for open combat casualty wounds as part of this broad investigation was not mentioned in the report. OBJECTIV...

Study Design Retrospective cohort controlled study. Objective To determine quality-of-life (QOL) outcomes for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) treated with membrane-stabilizing agents (MSAs). Methods Patients with LSS and concordant neurogenic claudication treated with MSAs (n = 701) or conservatively without MSAs (n = 2104) at a single tertiary care hospital were identified. Patient ...

Objectives: Methotrexate is commonly used in the treatment of ectopic pregnancy. Outcomes with a suboptimal drop in human chorionic gonadotrophic (hCG) level are unknown. This study aimed to determine the optimal cutoff value for hCG drop in detecting treatment success, to investigate the predictors of success, and to evaluate outcome following a single dose of methotrexate as treatment of ecto...

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...

IMPORTANCE Chyle fistula is an uncommon complication of neck surgery. A variety of management strategies have been described, including diet restriction, parenteral nutrition, use of pressure dressings, and revision surgery. Octreotide has been used with success in patients with neck and thoracic chyle fistulas, but data regarding efficacy in neck chyle fistulas are lacking. OBJECTIVE To eval...

Introduction Pseudomonas aeruginosa is well-known cause of hospital infections with high morbidity and mortality rates [1]. According to the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System (NNISS), P. aeruginosa is responsible for approximately 8% of all hospital infections. It was the most frequent cause of ventilator-associated pneumonias (VAP), the fourthrated on the list of causes of hos...