Implementation of an Opt-out and Rapid Point-Of-Care Syphilis Testing Program for Pregnant Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department.

Background: Adult and congenital syphilis rates are rising in the US. The aim of this pre- and post-implementation study was to determine whether implementation of an opt-out laboratory-based and rapid syphilis point-of-care testing program in the emergency department (ED) improves the detection and treatment of syphilis during pregnancy in a high-prevalence region.

Methods: This pre-and post-implementation study was conducted at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX.

Congenital Syphilis in Live Births: Adverse Outcomes, Hospital Length of Stay, and Costs.

Objective: To examine temporal trends and risk factors for congenital syphilis in newborn hospitalizations and to evaluate the association between adverse outcomes and congenital syphilis and health care utilization for newborn hospitalizations complicated by congenital syphilis.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional study using data from the National Inpatient Sample to identify newborn hospitalizations in the United States between 2016 and 2020. Newborns with congenital syphilis were identified with International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification codes.

nucleic acid semi-quantitation and molecular macrolide resistance detection via automated assays: gender and specimen source considerations.

Unlabelled: A laboratory-developed test (LDT) using analyte-specific reagents has been optimized on a commercial platform to detect macrolide resistance-associated mutations (MRM) in 23S rRNA from from primary clinical specimens. In this study, MRM-LDT was applied to a multi-specimen source study set. One thousand four hundred ninety-five primary specimens testing positive for by commercial transcription-mediated amplification (TMA) were initially titered by the TMA assay using serial 10-fold dilutions to semi-quantitate target nucleic acid burden.