Publications by authors named "Erin Chung"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigated how acute respiratory illness (ARI) impacted school, work attendance, and nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPI) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data collected from families in King County, Washington.
  • Researchers monitored ARI symptoms weekly from November 2019 to June 2021 and analyzed how these symptoms affected behaviors, finding notable shifts in NPI use, particularly during the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic.
  • Results showed a significant decrease in school absenteeism during the pandemic, alongside a marked increase in masking and other NPIs, but no additional disruptions related to illness at school or work beyond what was observed pre-pandemic.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study focused on understanding how SARS-CoV-2 spreads within households during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly noting the challenges with contact tracing.
  • Participants from 346 households in Seattle used respiratory specimen kits and provided weekly health updates from October 2020 to June 2021, allowing for monitoring and testing of viral infections.
  • Results showed that only 1.2% of participants tested positive, with similar genetic strains found among infected individuals in the same households, indicating effective household transmission.
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Background: Neonatal sepsis is commonly treated with vancomycin in the neonatal intensive care unit. Therapeutic drug monitoring of vancomycin is routinely used to personalise dosing to optimise effectiveness and avoid toxicity.

Objectives: This study aimed to define a target range by evaluating associations between vancomycin trough concentrations or area under the concentration time curve over 24 hours (AUC) and clinical outcomes in neonates.

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Introduction: Vancomycin dosing tailored for newborns is challenging due to the significant influence of maturation and organ function on pharmacokinetics. Population pharmacokinetic (popPK) models can be used to improve target attainment in neonates.

Objectives: The primary objective was to derive and evaluate a popPK model of intravenous vancomycin for neonates.

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Background: C3 glomerulonephritis (C3GN) can be a devastating disease with poor response to immunosuppressive therapy. Complement inhibition with eculizumab has had equivocal results in patients with C3GN.

Case-diagnosis/treatment: We report a case of a 6-year-old boy with C3GN presenting with nephrotic syndrome, severe hypertension and impaired kidney function.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effects of glucagon infusions on infants with refractory neonatal hypoglycemia, focusing on complications like metabolic acidosis, thrombocytopenia, and hyponatremia.
  • It found that nearly 60% of infants on glucagon developed metabolic acidosis, particularly frequent in those not born to diabetic mothers, alongside a significant rate of thrombocytopenia.
  • The findings indicate a need for further research to understand the causes and mechanisms behind these complications, especially in lower birth weight infants.
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We implemented a voluntary SARS-CoV-2 screening testing study for kindergarten-2nd grade students in a Washington School district. Weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing participation was higher for students with staff-collected nasal swabs at school than for students with parent-collected swabs at home.

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Background: Co-circulating respiratory pathogens can interfere with or promote each other, leading to important effects on disease epidemiology. Estimating the magnitude of pathogen-pathogen interactions from clinical specimens is challenging because sampling from symptomatic individuals can create biased estimates.

Methods: We conducted an observational, cross-sectional study using samples collected by the Seattle Flu Study between 11 November 2018 and 20 August 2021.

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() is a rare cause of neonatal bacterial meningitis. Treatment can be challenging because of ' intrinsic antibiotic resistance and the difficulty in accessing antimicrobial susceptibility testing. In this report, we describe an extremely preterm male infant with seizures who had a subsequent diagnosis of meningitis.

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Importance: The association between COVID-19 symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 viral levels in children living in the community is not well understood.

Objective: To characterize symptoms of pediatric COVID-19 in the community and analyze the association between symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels, as approximated by cycle threshold (Ct) values, in children and adults.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study used a respiratory virus surveillance platform in persons of all ages to detect community COVID-19 cases from March 23 to November 9, 2020.

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Background: Vancomycin is commonly used to treat gram-positive bacterial infections in the paediatric population, but dosing can be challenging. Population pharmacokinetic (popPK) modelling can improve individualization of dosing regimens. The primary objective of this study was to describe popPK models of vancomycin and factors that influence pharmacokinetic (PK) variability in paediatric patients.

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Introduction: Vancomycin is a common antibiotic used to treat hemodialysis (HD) or hemodiafiltration (HDF)-related infections in pediatric patients, but optimal dosing remains unknown. This is the first observational study to characterize the pharmacokinetics and evaluate dosing of vancomycin in this population.

Methods: Eligible patients received IV vancomycin 10 mg/kg per dose postdialysis followed by a series of serum vancomycin concentrations collected before, immediately after, 1 hour after, and 4 hours after dialysis.

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Background: Hypertension confers a poor prognosis in moderate or severe aortic stenosis (AS), however, antihypertensive therapy (AHT) is often not prescribed due to the perceived deleterious effects of vasodilation and negative inotropes.

Objective: To assess the efficacy and safety outcomes of AHT in adults with moderate or severe AS.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

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Background: Heart failure (HF) is frequently associated with renal impairment. Tolvaptan is reported to be effective in treating congestion in HF without significant electrolyte loss compared to conventional diuretics. However, the safety and efficacy of its use in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is uncertain.

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Background: Animal studies suggest that Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease, may persist after antibiotic therapy and can be detected by various means including xenodiagnosis using the natural tick vector (Ixodes scapularis). No convincing evidence exists for the persistence of viable spirochetes after recommended courses of antibiotic therapy in humans. We determined the safety of using I.

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Evidence suggests xenobiotic exposure during periods of inflammation can increase an individual's susceptibility to toxicity. The present study aimed to validate an in-vitro inflammatory model to identify compounds that increase hepatotoxicity during inflammation. Using freshly isolated hepatocytes exposed to a low nontoxic flow of H2O2 using glucose (G) and glucose oxidase (GO) and supplementing it with either peroxidase or Fe(II), the effects of inflammation on 2 classes of drugs known to cause hepatotoxicity were examined: nitroaromatics (nimesulide, nilutamide, flutamide) and aromatic amines (clozapine, thioridazine).

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TRIF is an adaptor molecule important in transducing signals from intracellularly signaling Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) and TLR4. Recently, TLR2 was found to signal from intracellular compartments. Using a synthetic ligand for TLR2/1 heterodimers, as well as Borrelia burgdorferi, which is a strong activator of TLR2/1, we found that TLR2 signaling can utilize TRIF.

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The occurrence of multiple pathogen species on a shared host species is unexpected when they exploit the same micro-niche within the host individual. One explanation for such observations is the presence of pathogen-specific resistances segregating within the host population into sites that are differentially occupied by the competing pathogens. This study used experimental inoculations to test whether specific resistances may contribute to the maintenance of two species of anther-smut fungi, Microbotryum silenes-inflatae and Microbotryum lagerheimii, in natural populations of Silene uniflora in England and Wales.

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HSV is among the most common human pathogens in the world. It is known to cause painful, persistent skin lesions, while also being the most common cause of fatal non-epidemic encephalitis as well as the leading cause of corneal blindness. The development of prophylactic vaccines could substantially reduce global health problems associated with HSV.

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The internalization of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, by phagocytes is essential for an effective activation of the immune response to this pathogen. The intracellular, cytosolic receptor Nod2 has been shown to play varying roles in either enhancing or attenuating inflammation in response to different infectious agents. We examined the role of Nod2 in responses to B.

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