OBJECTIVE To evaluate the usefulness of endocervical Gram stain smears in the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae in a female population attending a STD clinic. METHODS 494 females attending a STD clinic and undergoing a speculum examination had endocervical specimens submitted for C trachomatis culture, direct fluorescent antibody testing (DFA), and N gonorrhoeae cul...

Sepsis is a critical condition often caused by bacterial infection and associated with death and mortality. The prognosis of this disease depends on early diagnosis and proper treatment. Definite diagnosis of sepsis is positive blood culture and this test needs a long time to perform, so other biochemical parameters such as procalcitonin serum level has been introduced. To determine sensitivity...

A76-year-old man was brought to the emergency department of Singapore General Hospital by his family for productive cough, dyspnea, fever, and increasing drowsiness over the past 4 days. Two days prior to presentation, he had been started on a course of amoxicillin. He had a background history of asthma, bicytopenia, and early Parkinsonism, for which he and his family had declined follow-up car...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) detection by histological staining methods, and to compare with those of Gram staining and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). METHODS This is a cross-sectional study conducted at the Department of Microbiology, Shree P. M. Patel Paramedical College, Anand, Gujarat, India on 436 patients attending the Deep Surgical Hospital, Anand, Gujarat be...

INTRODUCTION Bacterial vaginosis is of clinical interest because of its possible causal relationship with complications during pregnancy, postpartum, and complications after surgery. METHODS Gram stain for clue cells and Gardnerella vaginalis culture methods were evaluated retrospectively in a microbiological medical laboratory for the first half of 2015. We were interested in the proportion ...

We reviewed the results of microscopic Gram stain examination and routine culture for 2,635 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples processed in an adult hospital microbiology laboratory during 55 months. There were 56 instances of bacterial or fungal meningitis (16 associated with central nervous system [CNS] shunt infection), four infections adjacent to the subarachnoid space, four cases of sepsis ...