Using Computerized Physician Order Entry to Ensure Appropriate Vaccination of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a disorder in which an aberrant immune response in a genetically susceptible host, with influences from environmental factors, leads to intestinal inflammation. Vaccines against influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia are indicated for all patients with IBD, while vaccines such as hepatitis A and B, human papillomavirus, and meningococcal meningitis are only indicated for patients with specific risk factor profiles. Some vaccines are contraindicated for patients receiving immunosuppressive medications; typically, these are live or live attenuated vaccines such as measles-mumps-rubella, varicella zoster, and herpes zoster.

Intraoperative parathyroid hormone assay: a necessary tool for multiglandular disease.

Objectives: The aims were to: (1) evaluate whether failure of intraoperative parathyroid hormone (ioPTH) to decrease by the Miami criterion is a more specific indicator of multiglandular disease (MGD) than sestamibi scan and (2) determine an adequate cutoff value for decrease in ioPTH in MGD.

Study Design: Case series with chart review.

Setting: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center- Shreveport.

Viability of an enzymatic mannitol method to predict sugarcane deterioration at factories.

The delivery of consignments of deteriorated sugarcane to factories can detrimentally affect multiple process units, and even lead to a factory shut-down. An enzymatic factory method was used to measure mannitol, a major degradation product of sugarcane Leuconostoc deterioration in the US, in press (consignment) and crusher juices collected across the 2004 processing season at a Louisiana factory. Weather conditions varied markedly across the season causing periods of the delivery of deteriorated sugarcane to the factory.