Hospital carpeting and epidemiology of Clostridium difficile.

Background: Clostridium difficile is the usual and most important cause of antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous enterocolitis. The source of nosocomial acquisition of the organism in nonepidemic settings has not been determined.

Methods: Epidemiologic and microbiologic studies were conducted in a community-teaching hospital complex to assess the impact of carpeting in patient rooms on environmental contamination with C.

Group G streptococcal endocarditis and bacteremia.

This report describes fifteen recent cases of group G streptococcal bacteremia in patients with acute illnesses. Seven patients had acute endocarditis (47 percent). Four deaths occurred, and four patients had significant clinical complications during prolonged stormy courses.

Omental anisakiasis: a rare mimic of acute appendicitis.

The authors recently encountered a patient with omental anisakiasis who presented with features of acute appendicitis and who made an uneventful recovery following resection of an inflammatory omental mass containing the larva(e). Anisakiasis refers to infestation of humans by species of marine nematode larvae belonging to the subfamily Anisakinae. Although this condition is rarely reported in the United States, it has been well described both in Holland and in the Orient.