Eczema herpeticum in pregnancy.

Eczema herpeticum (EH), or Kaposi's varicelliform eruption, is a skin infection with herpes simplex type I virus (HSV-1) that occurs in patients with compromised skin integrity, such as atopic dermatitis (AD). Unrecognized, it may be fatal and viremia in pregnancy may lead to fetal demise and miscarriage. We describe a rare case of EH in pregnancy, eczema herpeticum gravidarum (EHG), which is the third published report in the literature to date.

The utility of aspartate aminotransferase/platelet ratio index in HIV/hepatitis C-co-infected patients.

Liver biopsy is currently the gold standard for determining the stage of liver fibrosis. There are risks associated with liver biopsy; therefore, surrogate markers to predict the severity of disease would be useful. We studied 50 patients with HIV/hepatitis C co-infection who had liver biopsies and determined that no patient with an aspartate aminotransferase/platelet ratio index (APRI) of 0.

Polymyxin B nephrotoxicity and efficacy against nosocomial infections caused by multiresistant gram-negative bacteria.

Reported rates of nephrotoxicity associated with the systemic use of polymyxins have varied widely. The emergence of infections due to multiresistant gram-negative bacteria has necessitated the use of systemic polymyxin B once again for the treatment of such infections. We retrospectively investigated the rate of nephrotoxicity in patients receiving polymyxin B parenterally for the treatment of infections caused by multiresistant gram-negative bacteria from October 1999 to September 2000.

Lyme disease complicated with pseudotumor cerebri.

To our knowledge, pseudotumor cerebri as a complication of Lyme disease has been described only in children. We report the first case of an adult with pseudotumor cerebri due to Lyme disease and the use of serial lumbar punctures as the sole therapy.