Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Pharyngeal Gonorrhea in Korean Men With Urethritis.

Background: Pharyngeal infection is more difficult to diagnose and treat than genital or rectal infection and can act as a reservoir for gonococcal infection. We determined the prevalence of pharyngeal gonorrhea in Korean men with urethritis and analyzed the molecular characteristics and antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolates.

Methods: Seventy-two male patients with symptoms of urethritis who visited a urology clinic in Wonju, Korea, between September 2016 and March 2018 were included.

Laboratory Preparation for Digital Medicine in Healthcare 4.0: An Investigation Into the Awareness and Applications of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.

Background: Healthcare 4.0. refers to the integration of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analysis, into the healthcare sector.

Prediction of urine culture results by automated urinalysis with digital flow morphology analysis.

To investigate the association between the results of urinalysis and those of concurrent urine cultures, and to construct a prediction model for the results of urine culture. A total of 42,713 patients were included in this study. Patients were divided into two independent groups including training and test datasets.

Beneficial Chromosomal Integration of the Genes for CTX-M Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase in for Stable Propagation.

The acquired CTX-M-type extended-spectrum-β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing are of great concern in clinical settings because they limit therapeutic options for patients infected by the pathogens. An intriguing clonality of CTX-M ESBL-producing blood isolates was observed from a national cohort study, and comparative genomics were assessed for the 115 blood isolates carrying the gene. The plasmid preference of particular clones of a sequence type (ST) was assessed by liquid mating.

Antimicrobial resistance in South Korea: A report from the Korean global antimicrobial resistance surveillance system (Kor-GLASS) for 2017.

At the end of 2015, a global action plan on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was proposed by the World Health Organization, and the Global AMR Surveillance System (GLASS) was subsequently initiated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of South Korea established a customized AMR surveillance system for South Korea, called Kor-GLASS, in early 2016. A pilot phase of Kor-GLASS was operated from May to December 2016 with six sentinel hospitals, and phase I of Kor-GLASS started in January 2017 with eight sentinel hospitals.