Publications by authors named "C Pete Pickens"

Unlabelled: Ubiquitous in nature, biofilms provide stability in a fluctuating environment and provide protection from stressors. Biofilms formed in industrial processes are exceedingly problematic and costly. While biofilms of sulfate-reducing bacteria in the environment are often beneficial because of their capacity to remove toxic metals from water, in industrial pipelines, these biofilms cause a major economic impact due to their involvement in metal and concrete corrosion.

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In The Netherlands, newborn screening (NBS) for tyrosinemia type 1 (TT1) uses dried blood spot (DBS) succinylacetone (SUAC) as a biomarker. However, high false-positive (FP) rates and a false-negative (FN) case show that the Dutch TT1 NBS protocol is suboptimal. In search of optimization options, we evaluated the protocols used by other NBS programs and their performance.

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Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a nutrient solution administered intravenously (IV) to premature babies. PN causes elevations of some amino acids in blood samples that are also biomarkers used in newborn screening (NBS). Therefore, PN status must be annotated by clinicians on dried blood spot (DBS) cards to reduce NBS laboratory burdens associated with potential false results; however, NBS laboratories continue to receive DBSs with misannotated PN status.

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Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (DOSE) system captures non-fatal overdose data from health departments' emergency department (ED) and inpatient hospitalisation discharge data; however, these data have not been compared with other established state-level surveillance systems, which may lag by several years depending on the state. This analysis compared non-fatal overdose rates from DOSE discharge data with rates from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) in order to compare DOSE data against an established dataset.

Methods: DOSE discharge data case definitions (ie, International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, Clinical Modification codes) for non-fatal unintentional/undetermined intent all drug, all opioid-involved, heroin-involved and stimulant-involved overdoses were applied to HCUP's 2018-2020 State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) and State Inpatient Databases (SID).

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Background: Antibiotic stewardship in critically ill pneumonia patients is crucial yet challenging, partly due to the limited diagnostic yield of noninvasive infectious tests. In this study, we report an antibiotic prescription pattern informed by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) results, where clinicians de-escalate antibiotics based on the combination of quantitative cultures and multiplex PCR rapid diagnostic tests.

Methods: We analyzed data from SCRIPT, a single-center prospective cohort study of mechanically ventilated patients who underwent a BAL for suspected pneumonia.

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