Improving the detection of congenital syphilis: reviewing test utility and adherence to recommendations.

Western Australia (WA) has experienced a resurgence of congenital syphilis. Appropriate microbiology testing of the neonate is recommended to confirm infection, including syphilis immunoglobulin M (IgM), rapid plasma reagin (RPR) paired with a maternal sample, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on placenta and nasal swabs. We examined the performance of microbiology tests in confirmed congenital syphilis cases and the adherence to testing recommendations in those assessed as high risk.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus Reinfections in Children in Western Australia.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) reinfection in children is poorly understood. We examined the incidence, characteristics, and outcomes of hospital-attended RSV reinfections in children <16 years in Western Australia between 2012 and 2022. Individuals with repeat RSV detections ≥56 days apart were identified using laboratory data.

Picky with peakpicking: assessing chromatographic peak quality with simple metrics in metabolomics.

Background: Chromatographic peakpicking continues to represent a significant bottleneck in automated LC-MS workflows. Uncontrolled false discovery rates and the lack of manually-calibrated quality metrics require researchers to visually evaluate individual peaks, requiring large amounts of time and breaking replicability. This problem is exacerbated in noisy environmental datasets and for novel separation methods such as hydrophilic interaction columns in metabolomics, creating a demand for a simple, intuitive, and robust metric of peak quality.

FeBRILe3: Safety Evaluation of Febrile Infant Guidelines Through Prospective Bayesian Monitoring.

Objectives: Despite evidence supporting earlier discharge of well-appearing febrile infants at low risk of serious bacterial infection (SBI), admissions for ≥48 hours remain common. Prospective safety monitoring may support broader guideline implementation.

Methods: A sequential Bayesian safety monitoring framework was used to evaluate a new hospital guideline recommending early discharge of low-risk infants.