Comparing outcomes among outpatients treated for pyelonephritis with oral cephalosporins versus first-line agents.

Fluoroquinolones and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) are first-line agents for acute pyelonephritis. Oral β-lactams are second-line agents owing to reported lower efficacy rates, primarily seen with aminopenicillins rather than cephalosporins. The increase in resistance rates and adverse effects associated with first-line agents provides justification to reconsider oral cephalosporins for pyelonephritis.

Stiffness based enrichment of leukemia cells using microfluidics.

To improve the survival rate of cancer patients, new diagnosis strategies are necessary to detect lower levels of cancer cells before and after treatment regimens. The scarcity of diseased cells, particularly in residual disease after treatment, demands highly sensitive detection approaches or the ability to enrich the diseased cells in relation to normal cells. We report a label-free microfluidic approach to enrich leukemia cells from healthy cells using inherent differences in cell biophysical properties.