Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America
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Comparative Study
Performance of Candida real-time polymerase chain reaction, β-D-glucan assay, and blood cultures in the diagnosis of invasive candidiasis.
The sensitivity of blood cultures for diagnosing invasive candidiasis (IC) is poor. ⋯ Candida PCR and, to a lesser extent, BDG testing significantly enhanced the ability of blood cultures to diagnose IC.
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Tuberculosis contact investigation identifies individuals who may be recently infected with tuberculosis and are thus at increased risk for disease. Contacts with latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) are offered chemoprophylaxis to prevent active disease; however, the effectiveness of this intervention is unclear as treatment completion is generally low. ⋯ Contact investigation facilitates active case finding and tuberculosis prevention, even when completion rates of chemoprophylaxis are suboptimal.
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Transrectal ultrasound-guided (TRUS) prostate biopsy is a commonly performed procedure, and fluoroquinolones are the most frequently given prophylactic antimicrobials. In the context of increasing fluoroquinolone resistance, and the international emergence of fluoroquinolone-resistant sequence type 131 (ST131) Escherichia coli, we describe a large series of E. coli bacteremia after TRUS biopsy. ⋯ E. coli bacteremia can be a life-threatening complication of TRUS biopsy. Infecting strains are frequently multidrug-resistant and resistant to common empirical antibiotic agents. E. coli ST131 is an important cause of sepsis after TRUS biopsy. Further studies should evaluate colonization with fluoroquinolone-resistant E. coli as a risk factor for postbiopsy sepsis.
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Observational studies showed that the profile of infective endocarditis (IE) significantly changed over the past decades. However, most studies involved referral centers. We conducted a population-based study to control for this referral bias. The objective was to update the description of characteristics of IE in France and to compare the profile of community-acquired versus healthcare-associated IE. ⋯ S. aureus became both the leading cause and the most important prognostic factor of IE, and healthcare-associated IE appeared as a major subgroup of the disease.