Publications by authors named "Blaschke A"

Article Synopsis
  • The study examines the effectiveness of antibiotics in treating pediatric pneumonia in children and adolescents, specifically comparing outcomes for those who received antibiotics versus those who did not.
  • Data was collected from a multistate claims database for Medicaid-insured individuals under 17 years old who were diagnosed with pneumonia between 2017 and 2019, taking into account factors to minimize bias.
  • Results showed that treatment failure rates were slightly higher in children who did not receive antibiotics (10.7%) compared to those who did (8.7%), although the difference was not clinically significant.
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A significant hurdle in untargeted lipid/metabolomics research lies in the absence of reliable, cross-validated spectral libraries, leading to a considerable portion of LC-MS features being labeled as unknowns. Despite continuous advancement in annotation tools and libraries, it is important to safeguard, publish and share acquired data through public repositories. Embracing this trend of data sharing not only promotes efficient resource utilization but also paves the way for future repurposing and in-depth analysis; ultimately advancing our comprehension of Covid-19 and other diseases.

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Microplastics in urban runoff undergo rapid fragmentation and accumulate in the soil, potentially endangering shallow groundwater. To improve the understanding of microplastic transport in groundwater, column experiments were performed to compare the transport behavior of fragmented microplastics (FMPs ∼1-µm diameter) and spherical microplastics (SMPs ∼1-, 10-, and 20-µm diameter) in natural gravel (medium and fine) and quartz sand (coarse and medium). Polystyrene microspheres were physically abraded with glass beads to mimic the rapid fragmentation process.

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The contribution of ships to the microbial faecal pollution status of water bodies is largely unknown but frequently of human health concern. No methodology for a comprehensive and target-orientated system analysis was available so far. We developed a novel approach for integrated and multistage impact evaluation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Viral bronchiolitis is a common illness in kids, and while treatment is mainly supportive, some may have serious bacterial infections (cSBIs) that require antibiotics; identifying these infections can be tricky.
  • A study conducted at a children's hospital from 2012 to 2019 looked at children under 2 with bronchiolitis, finding that 4.2% had at least one cSBI, primarily bacterial pneumonia.
  • Factors increasing the risk of cSBI included needing invasive mechanical ventilation, high C-reactive protein levels, having complex chronic conditions, and being admitted to the PICU.
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Background: Emerging evidence suggests that initial oral and intravenous (IV) antibiotics have similar efficacy in pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), but further data are needed.

Objective: We determined the association between hospital-level initial oral antibiotic rates and outcomes in pediatric CAP.

Designs, Settings, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study included children hospitalized with CAP at 43 hospitals in the Pediatric Health Information System (2016-2022).

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Bedside teaching (BST) is a core element of medical education. In light of a reported decrease in BST, evidence on how to use BST time most efficiently should be developed. Given that little research into the tangible quality characteristics of good BST has been reported, we investigated the influence of various teacher and structural characteristics on the perceived quality of BST.

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The invasion of ecosystems by non-native species is recognized as one of the most significant global challenges, particularly in semiarid regions where native biodiversity is already under stress from drought and land degradation. The implicit assumption is that invaders are strong competitors, but a greenhouse pairwise experiment conducted to examine intraspecific and interspecific competition effects of Opuntia ficus-indica, a widespread invader in semiarid ecosystems, with two species native to the highlands of Eritrea, Ricinus communis and Solanum marginatum, revealed that O. ficus-indica is a weak competitor.

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The discharge of pathogens into urban recreational water bodies during combined sewer overflows (CSOs) pose a potential threat for public health which may increase in the future due to climate change. Improved methods are needed for predicting the impact of these effects on the microbiological urban river water quality and infection risks during recreational use. The aim of this study was to develop a novel probabilistic-deterministic modelling approach for this purpose building on physically plausible generated future rainfall time series.

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Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. In the present study, we aimed to assess the effect of corticosteroids on all-cause mortality in patients hospitalized with CAP.

Methods: For this meta-analysis and meta-regression, we conducted a systematic search of trials that evaluated the effect of corticosteroid therapy in patients hospitalized with CAP through March 2023.

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COVID-19 infections are accompanied by adverse changes in inflammatory pathways that are also partly influenced by increased oxidative stress and might result in elevated DNA damage. The aim of this case-control study was to examine whether COVID-19 patients show differences in oxidative stress-related markers, unconjugated bilirubin (UCB), an inflammation panel and DNA damage compared to healthy, age-and sex-matched controls. The Comet assay with and without the treatment of formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase (FPG) and HO challenge was used to detect DNA damage in whole blood.

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Biological invasions pose global threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Invasive species often display a high degree of phenotypic plasticity, enabling them to adapt to new environments. This study examines plasticity to water stress in native and invasive populations, a prevalent invader in arid and semi-arid ecosystems.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess the impact of the 2011 PIDS/IDSA guidelines for treating pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), specifically focusing on aminopenicillin use and reduced reliance on chest X-rays.
  • Data was collected from a national hospital database between 2009 and 2021, evaluating antibiotic therapy and diagnostic practices among children aged 3 months to 18 years with CAP.
  • Results showed an increase in aminopenicillin prescriptions alongside a decrease in blood cultures and chest X-ray use, but overall diagnostic practices didn't change much, suggesting a need for better implementation of the guidelines in clinical settings.
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Background: Bacterial co-infections are believed to be less frequent in patients with Covid-19 than influenza, but frequencies varied between studies.

Methods: This single-center retrospective, propensity score-matched analysis included adult patients with Covid-19 or influenza admitted to normal-care wards between 02/2014 and 12/2021. Covid-19 cases were propensity score matched to influenza cases at a 2:1 ratio.

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We analyse interactions between teachers and students during video-recorded bedside teaching sessions in internal medicine, orthopaedics and neurology. Multiple raters used a high-inference categorical scheme on 36 sessions. Our research questions concern the types of student mistakes, clinical teachers' reactions to them and if they use different strategies to address different types of mistakes.

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Unlabelled: Previous findings suggest that bacterial coinfections are less common in ICU patients with COVID-19 than with influenza, but evidence is limited.

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the rate of early bacterial coinfections in ICU patients with COVID-19 or influenza.

Design Setting And Participants: Retrospective propensity score matched cohort study.

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COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA) is a life-threatening fungal infection that mainly affects critically ill patients. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence and clinical outcomes of putative CAPA in critically ill COVID-19 patients. This retrospective observational cohort study included 181 cases from 5 ICUs at Vienna General Hospital between January 2020 and April 2022.

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Haemophilus influenzae causes serious invasive disease in children and is described as an infrequent cause of neonatal early-onset sepsis (EOS). Here we present the clinical and microbiologic features of 10 cases of EOS due to H. influenzae in Utah.

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Background: Bedside teaching (BST) is an essential and traditional clinical teaching format. It has been subject to various impediments and has transformed over time. Besides a decrease in bedside time, there has also been a didactic diversification.

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We developed an innovative approach to estimate the occurrence and extent of fecal pollution sources for urban river catchments. The methodology consists of 1) catchment surveys complemented by literature data where needed for probabilistic estimates of daily produced fecal indicator (FIBs, E. coli, enterococci) and zoonotic reference pathogen numbers (Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium and Giardia) excreted by human and animal sources in a river catchment, 2) generating a hypothesis about the dominant sources of fecal pollution and selecting a source targeted monitoring design, and 3) verifying the results by comparing measured concentrations of the informed choice of parameters (i.

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To guarantee proper protection from fecally transmitted pathogen infections, drinking water wells should have a sufficiently large setback distance from potential sources of contamination, e.g. a nearby river.

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Background: Limited data exist to inform antibiotic selection among people with cystic fibrosis (CF) with airway infection by multiple CF-related microorganisms. This study aimed to determine among children with CF co-infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pa) if the addition of anti-MRSA antibiotics to antipseudomonal antibiotic treatment for pulmonary exacerbations (PEx) would be associated with improved clinical outcomes compared with antipseudomonal antibiotics alone.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study using data from the CF Foundation Patient Registry-Pediatric Health Information System linked dataset.

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Background: Despite the increased availability of diagnostic tests for respiratory viruses, their clinical utility for children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains uncertain.

Objective: To identify patterns of respiratory virus testing across children's hospitals prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and to determine whether hospital-level rates of viral testing were associated with clinical outcomes.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Multicenter retrospective cohort study of children hospitalized for CAP at 19 children's hospitals in the United States from 2010-2019.

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Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is currently finally determined in laboratory settings by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase-chain-reaction (rt-PCR). However, simple testing with immediately available results are crucial to gain control over COVID-19. The aim was to evaluate such a point-of-care antigen rapid test (AG-rt) device in its performance compared to laboratory-based rt-PCR testing in COVID-19 suspected, symptomatic patients.

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